Earth Observation data hub
One place to view and download free satellite pictures, scenes, aircraft and ship data for a country, economic zone or sea area.
Open the hub and choose an area
Pick countries, exclusive economic zones or sea areas, or use what you see on the map. Searches and downloads below use this area. You can look at the pictures without an account. Searching live data and downloading files needs a free account, which takes one minute.
Pictures: daily images of the whole Earth
Pictures are daily satellite images of the whole Earth, free from NASA. Pick one, choose a day and look at your region. The newest available day is shown for each picture. Press Download what you see to save the view.
Scenes: search the open archives
Choose a collection: Sentinel-2 colour, Sentinel-1 radar, Landsat, Elevation or the Africa data cube. Set the dates and the most cloud allowed, then press Search scenes. Each result shows a preview and the files you can download.
This page needs a free account.
Download a file
Open Files on a scene and press Download. Some archives need their own free account, for example Copernicus, and then the page opens the scene in their browser. If an archive has no free direct download for a scene, try the same collection in Microsoft Planetary Computer.
Aircraft: free ADS-B data
Choose a feed: adsb.lol or adsb.fi (open data) or OpenSky Network, which has a small daily allowance. Press Look now to see aircraft in the area. Tick Refresh every 15 s to keep watching. Download the list as GeoJSON.
This page needs a free account.
Ships and sea: the sea now
In 1. The sea right now press Read the sea in this area. Nine points across the area give waves, swell, water temperature and current, from Open-Meteo Marine, shown as blue dots on the map.
This page needs a free account.
Ships that broadcast (AIS) and radar
In 2. Ships that broadcast (AIS) press Listen for ships. It listens for 9 seconds. Open AIS exists only where a country or community publishes it, and most coasts of Central Africa have little or none. In 3. Ships seen by radar, search Sentinel-1 radar scenes for your zone. Radar shows ships, oil slicks and floods, day and night, through cloud, with no AIS needed.
Catalogue: every free source
The Catalogue lists 76 free and open sources of Earth data with how to get each one. Search by word, for example radar, rainfall, ships or Africa, and filter by access: No account needed, Free account, Free key or Free feed. Where a source can be searched in the hub, press Search here. Data stays with its publisher and its licence applies.
- Choose a smaller area if a message says only part of it was covered.