Autumn transforms forests into a patchwork of gold, bronze and red. Along woodland paths, the spectacle unfolds leaf by leaf. From space, it becomes something much larger: entire mountain ranges and stretches of countryside changing colour.
As the season returns to the Northern Hemisphere, satellite images captured in 2024 offer a striking view of this annual transformation. Published by the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA’s Earth Observatory, they reveal autumn landscapes across Europe, the United States and Mongolia.
Shorter days and falling temperatures prompt many deciduous trees to slow and eventually stop producing chlorophyll, the pigment responsible for their green colour. As it breaks down, other pigments become more visible, creating the shades associated with autumn.
Gold and bronze across Europe
A series of images from the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission captures autumn foliage in three European regions: Italy’s Tuscan-Emilian Apennines, the mountains along the border between North Macedonia and Greece, and Romania’s southeastern Carpathians.
Taken in October 2024, the images show forests shifting from green to golden-brown. All three regions support European beech, Fagus sylvatica, whose autumn foliage forms expansive gold and bronze canopies visible from orbit.
Along the North Macedonia–Greece border, the colours extend across the Baba Mountains and Pelister National Park towards northern Greece’s Verno/Vitsi mountains. European beech predominates at higher elevations, while oak grows at middle and lower altitudes.
Michigan’s colourful mitten
Across the Atlantic, Michigan’s Lower Peninsula offers another distinctive autumn scene. Nicknamed “the mitten” because of its shape, it appears in an image captured by the NOAA-20 satellite on 19 October 2024 and published by NASA’s Earth Observatory.
Maples bring reds and oranges to the northern Lower Peninsula, while aspen and larch add yellow. Evergreen conifers provide a green backdrop. The timing varies by location and year, but Michigan’s autumn colours generally begin appearing in mid to late September and can linger into late October.
Mongolia’s forests turn yellow
Around Lake Hövsgöl in northern Mongolia, the seasonal shift is especially clear in NASA’s comparison images. Views captured on 17 August and 26 September 2024 show green forests becoming golden, with snow already visible on nearby mountain ridges.
The surrounding forests consist mainly of Siberian larch, Larix sibirica. Unlike evergreen conifers, these trees turn yellow and shed their needles in autumn.
Autumn is brief in this part of Mongolia. Ice can begin forming on Lake Hövsgöl as early as November and persist into June, leaving a short window between the forests’ golden display and the long winter ahead.
