NASA's PACE satellite mapped how red Earth's vegetation looked in late September and early October 2026, using the Ocean Color Instrument to follow fall foliage from orbit, NASA Earth Observatory reported¹.

The agency said OCI records the planet daily in 286 spectral bands, including wavelengths used to track anthocyanins, carotenoids and chlorophylls that drive reds, yellows, oranges and greens¹. NASA said PACE is the first satellite able to measure all three pigment groups worldwide every day or two¹.

Maps for Sept. 29 to Oct. 4 showed red foliage appearing to peak in New England, northern Canada and northern Russia, then spreading south into the Mid-Atlantic, Mongolia and northern China from Oct. 5 to 11¹. In New England and upstate New York, redness began to fade that second week even as it spread across much of the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic¹.

The satellite detected high redness in parts of northern and eastern Russia, northern Alaska and northern Canada in the first week¹. NASA said some yellows and reds on the maps are not autumn leaves: aging or harvested crops can show high anthocyanin, and clouds can leave gaps¹.

Many of the reddest patches, including the Adirondacks, Vermont's Green Mountains and New Hampshire's White Mountains, have large numbers of sugar maples and red maples, the story said¹. Blueberries, bilberries, sedges, mosses and grasses likely add reds in marshy tundra in northern Alaska, Canada and Russia¹. Landsat 9's Operational Land Imager captured red foliage around Ripton, Vermont, on Oct. 3, near the region's peak, NASA said¹.

Karl Huemmrich, a University of Maryland, Baltimore County vegetation scientist on the PACE team, said time-series data let researchers "determine peak redness and yellowness anywhere on Earth"¹. NASA data scientist Skye Caplan has posted weekly redness maps for the GLOBE North American Phenology Campaign and asked the public for ground photos to check the satellite record¹.

Caplan said pigment changes can also mark drought or insect damage, which may explain high redness in some farm regions of Brazil, Australia and Canada that do not follow the broader seasonal wave¹. The team hopes the work will help study shifting greening and fall senescence, the carbon cycle, wildfire risk and early signs of drought, insects and plant disease¹.

Sources

1. NASAHunting Red Leaves with Satellites12:01 AM

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