NASA Administrator Bill Nelson led a ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday to showcase a new Earth Information Center at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The center is part physical space and part virtual experience, which shows how NASA data can improve lives in the face of disasters, environmental challenges, and our changing world.
The agency also launched its corresponding Earth Information Center website as part of the event. The ribbon cutting ceremony comes ahead of a public opening of the center on Monday, June 26.
Climate change is a key priority of the Biden-Harris Administration, and NASA plays a critical role in providing data to researchers and others through its extensive Earth-monitoring constellation of satellites. For six decades, NASA satellites, sensors, and scientists have collected observations about our home planet – and at the Earth Information Center, the public can glimpse what this data has taught us about sea level rise, air quality, wildfires, greenhouse gases, energy, and agriculture.
“For more than 60 years, NASA has used our vantage point of space to observe Earth with satellites and instruments aboard the
- Karen St. Germain, director, NASA’s Earth Sciences Division
- Dave Applegate, director, USGS (U.S. Geological Survey)
- Janet McCabe, deputy administrator, EPA (Environmental Protection Agency)
- Erik Hooks, deputy administrator, FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Administration)
- Michael Morgan, assistant secretary of Commerce for Environmental Observation and Prediction,