Landsat, a joint program of the USGS and NASA, has been observing the Earth since 1972. Today the Landsat satellites image the entire Earth's surface at a 30-meter resolution about once every two weeks, including multispectral and thermal data.

The Copernicus Program is headed by the European Commission in partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA). The Sentinels include all-weather radar images from Sentinel-1A and -1B, high-resolution optical images from Sentinel 2A and 2B, as well as ocean and land data suitable for environmental and climate monitoring from Sentinel 3. 

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensors on NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites have been acquiring images of the Earth daily since 1999. Terra MODIS and Aqua MODIS are viewing the planet’s entire surface every 1 to 2 days, acquiring data in 36 spectral bands.

Climate models generate both long-term climate predictions and historical interpolations of surface variables. The Earth Engine catalog includes historical reanalysis data from NCEP/NCAR, gridded meteorological datasets like NLDAS-2, and GridMET, and climate model outputs like the University of Idaho MACAv2-METDATA and the NASA Earth Exchange’s Downscaled Climate Projections.

Land cover maps describe the physical landscape in terms of land cover classes such as forest, grassland, and water. Earth Engine includes a wide variety land cover datasets, including global products such as NASA's MODIS-derived annual land cover maps and ESA's GlobCover, as well as higher-resolution national products such as the USGS National Land Cover Database.

Cropland data is key to understanding global water consumption and agricultural production. Earth Engine includes a number of cropland data products such as the USDA NASS Cropland Data Layers, as well as layers from the Global Food Security-Support Analysis Data (GFSAD) including cropland extent, crop dominance, and watering sources.

Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) describe the shape of Earth’s terrain. The Earth Engine data catalog contains several global DEMs such as Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) data at 30-meter resolution, regional DEMs at higher resolutions, and derived products such as the WWF's HydroSHEDS hydrology database.

Thermal satellite sensors can provide surface temperature and emissivity information. The Earth Engine data catalog includes both land and sea surface temperature products derived from several spacecraft sensors, including MODIS, ASTER, and AVHRR, in addition to raw Landsat thermal data.

As well as the fire data gathered from the MODIS instruments, Earth Blox also uses other fire datasets from the Google Earth Engine catalog. These include GlobFire, the Earth Engine version of the Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS) dataset, LANDFIRE, and GOES-16 and -17 Fire/Hot Spot Characterization.

The Earth Engine catalog includes atmospheric datasets such as ozone data from NASA's TOMS and OMI instruments and the MODIS Monthly Gridded Atmospheric Product.

Weather datasets describe forecasted and measured conditions over short periods of time, including precipitation, temperature, humidity, and wind, and other variables. Earth Engine includes forecast data from NOAA's Global Forecast System (GFS) and the NCEP Climate Forecast System (CFSv2), as well as sensor data from sources like the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM).

The Google Earth Engine catalog features several datasets on the count, distribution and density of human populations worldwide, available in Earth Blox. These include all revisions of the Gridded Population of World Version 4 (GPWv4), the GHSL human settlement layers, and data from the WorldPop Global Project.