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For Earth Day 2021, we explore the connections of Earth systems and NASA's ability to observe them in a changing world, highlighting the links between dust transport, vegetation, water quality, conservation and human health, the cryosphere, and disasters. Music: "Ellipsis" and "Terrafirma" by Ben Niblett and Jon Cotton [PRS] via Universal Production Music Video credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Jefferson Beck (USRA): Lead Producer Ellen T. Gray (ADNET): Writer Sofie Bates (KBR): Writer Roberto Molar Candanosa (KBR)

This 4K visualization shows the Moon's phase and libration at hourly intervals throughout 2022, as viewed from the Northern Hemisphere. Each frame represents one hour. In addition, this visualization shows the Moon's orbit position, sub-Earth and subsolar points, and distance from the Earth at true scale. Craters near the terminator are labeled, as are Apollo landing sites, maria, and other albedo features in sunlight. Video credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Data visualization by Ernie Wright (USRA) Producer & Editor - David Ladd (AIMM) Music provided by Universal Production Music: “Build the Future” – Alexander Hitchens

This 4K visualization shows the Moon's phase and libration at hourly intervals throughout 2021, as viewed from the Southern Hemisphere. Each frame represents one hour. In addition, this visualization shows the Moon's orbit position, sub-Earth and subsolar points, and distance from the Earth at true scale. Craters near the terminator are labeled, as are Apollo landing sites, maria, and other albedo features in sunlight. Video credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Data visualization by Ernie Wright (USRA) Producer & Editor - David Ladd (USRA) Music Provided by Universal Production Music: "Fly To The Moon"– Achille Richard

NASA’s Lucy mission tests the deployment of its solar arrays in the thermal vacuum chamber at Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado. Each of the two circular arrays is nearly 24 feet (7.3 m) wide. These arrays will power Lucy on its 12-year odyssey through the Jupiter Trojan asteroids, breaking records for a solar powered mission by traveling 530 million miles (853 million km) from the Sun. These large arrays will capture the sunlight needed to power the spacecraft as it travels through deep space.

It’s always shining, always ablaze with light and energy that drive weather, biology and more. In addition to keeping life alive on Earth, the sun also sends out a constant flow of particles called the solar wind, and it occasionally erupts with giant clouds of solar material, called coronal mass ejections, or explosions of X-rays called solar flares. These events can rattle our space environment out to the very edges of our solar system. In space, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, keeps an eye on our nearest star 24/7. SDO captures images of the sun in 10 different wavelengths, each of which helps highlight a different temperature of solar material. In this video, we experience SDO images of the sun in unprecedented detail. Presented in ultra-high definition, the video presents the dance of the ultra-hot material on our life-giving star in extraordinary detail, offering an intimate view of the grand forces of the solar system.

New imagery from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope is revealing details never before seen on Jupiter. High-resolution maps and spinning globes (rendered in the 4k Ultra HD format) are the first products to come from a program to study the solar system’s outer planets each year using Hubble. The observations are designed to capture a broad range of features, including winds, clouds, storms and atmospheric chemistry. These annual studies will help current and future scientists see how such giant worlds change over time. This video is in the public domain.

Once again, astronauts on the International Space Station dissolved an effervescent tablet in a floating ball of water, and captured images using a camera capable of recording four times the resolution of normal high-definition cameras. The higher resolution images and higher frame rate videos can reveal more information when used on science investigations, giving researchers a valuable new tool aboard the space station. This footage is one of the first of its kind. The cameras are being evaluated for capturing science data and vehicle operations by engineers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Around 13 times per century, Mercury passes between Earth and the sun in a rare astronomical event known as a planetary transit. Mercury orbits in a plane that is tilted from Earth's orbit, moving above or below our line of sight to the sun. The 2016 Mercury transit occurred on May 9th, between about 7:12 a.m. and 2:42 p.m. EDT. The images in this video are from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO. Transits provide a great opportunity to study the way planets and stars move in space– information that has been used throughout the ages to better understand the solar system, and which still helps scientists today calibrate their instruments.

On April 17, 2016, an active region on the sun’s right side released a mid-level solar flare, captured here by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. This solar flare caused moderate radio blackouts, according to NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center. Scientists study active regions – which are areas of intense magnetism – to better understand why they sometimes erupt with such flares. This video was captured in several wavelengths of extreme ultraviolet light, a type of light that is typically invisible to our eyes, but is color-coded in SDO images for easy viewing. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/SDO/Genna Duberstein The music is Collide by Greg Lehrman in the KillerTracks catalog.

Can’t get enough of Earth? Then this is for you: an extended playback of Ultra High Definition views of Planet Earth, captured by NASA astronaut Jeff Williams during his mission on the International Space Station in 2016. You’ll see the French Riviera and the Sahara Desert, cross North America from Texas all the way to Canada, and more—this is your source for the view of your home planet from 250 miles up! Fire up the biggest screen you have. Then throw on your favorite music, kick back and watch

Ever wonder what the spacewalker sees while you’re looking at him or her? Here’s your answer, courtesy of NASA astronaut Jack Fischer. This Ultra High Definition clip shows Fischer outside the International Space Station during a spacewalk on Expedition 51 in May 2017, and the view from a small camera attached to his spacesuit at the same time. Music by Joakim Karud.

This time-lapse imagery taken by NASA astronaut Jack Fischer from the International Space Station in 4K Ultra High Defintion takes us over the Pacific Ocean’s moon glint and above the night lights of San Francisco, Calif. through Denver, Colo. 4K

Got three minutes to spare for a tour of southern Europe? That’s all the time it takes, when you have a 4K camera orbiting Earth 250 miles up—and we do, on the International Space Station. This Ultra High Definition video was shot in August 2016 as the station traveled nearly 1000 miles, taking in views from above the western coast of France to the Iberian Peninsula, Italy, Switzerland, southern Germany and Austria, and southward to the countries of the Balkan Peninsula. Music by Joakim Karud.

Water in space behaves… differently. Surface tension and capillary flow can be harnessed to move fluids in more efficient ways. What looks like fun could actually help us improve systems for moving fluids in microgravity, in things like fuel tanks for space travel.

This video uses data gathered from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft to recreate some of the stunning views of the Moon that the Apollo 13 astronauts saw on their perilous journey around the farside in 1970. These visualizations, in 4K resolution, depict many different views of the lunar surface, starting with earthset and sunrise and concluding with the time Apollo 13 reestablished radio contact with Mission Control. Also depicted is the path of the free return trajectory around the Moon, and a continuous view of the Moon throughout that path. All views have been sped up for timing purposes — they are not shown in "real-time."