Image of the Day for October 22, 2026

Emissions on both sides of the island are unusually high as human-set fires spread in a landscape parched by drought.

Oct 22, 2026

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New Guinea, the world's second-largest island, harbors an extraordinary variety of plant life across more than a dozen distinct ecoregions , including seasonally dry savannas, tropical rainforests, and lowland swamp forests. But in September and October 2026, as drought gripped New Guinea (sometimes called Papua) amid a strong El Niño , fires scorched the island and smoke shrouded large swaths of it for weeks.

The VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) on the NOAA-20 satellite captured this image of thick smoke streaming from the southern part of the island on October 11, 2026.…