‘Eye-Popping’ Tour of Earth from Space Technical Devices

‘Eye-Popping’ Tour of Earth from Space

Written by Cooper Rusconi on June 29, 2011 – 4:14 pm

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Photos: Eye-Popping Tour of Earth from Space

Jun 29, 2011 09:02 PM EDT

This mesmerizing tour of Earth, narrated by a scientist from Johnson Space Center's Crew Earth Observations Office, offers an extraordinary view of the surface from the vantage point of an astronaut orbiting on the International Space Station.

Here's a list of what NASA calls "eye-popping shots" of some of the same places as seen by instruments aboard the many unmanned satellites that also orbit Earth.

Seasonally dry salt lakes and the traces of ephemeral streams occupy many of the valleys of the Zagros Mountains in southern Iran. Much of the time, the rivers and lakes are dry above ground, but subterranean water flows along the same pathways. Where these subterranean streams flow out of the mountains, the water table comes closer to the surface, and it is more readily accessible through wells. This simulated natural-color image of southeastern Fars province in southern Iran shows a dry river channel carving through arid mountains toward the northeast. The dry river spreads out across the valley floor in a silvery fan. A broad belt of lush agricultural land follows the curve of the fan and stretches out along a road that runs parallel to the ridgeline. The valley-ward margin of the intensely green agricultural belt fades to dull green along streams (or irrigation canals). The image was captured by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA’s Terra satellite on October 12, 2004.

Source: NASA

East of southern Florida, large swaths of ocean water glow peacock blue. These waters owe their iridescence to their shallow depths. Near Florida and Cuba, the underwater terrain is hilly, and the crests of many of these hills comprise the islands of the Bahamas. On February 12, 2009, relatively clear skies allowed the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite an unobstructed view of the region. The most striking feature of this image is the Great Bahama Bank, a massive underwater hill underlying Andros Island in the west, Eleuthera Island in the east, and multiple islands in between. To the north, another bank underlies another set of islands, including Grand Bahama. The varied colors of these banks suggest their surfaces are somewhat uneven. The banks’ distinct contours, sharply outlined in dark blue, indicate that the ocean floor drops dramatically around them. In fact, over the banks, the water depth is often less than 10 meters (33 feet), but the surrounding basin plunges to depths as low as 4,000 meters (13,100 feet). MODIS is not the only satellite to capture beautiful images of the Bahamas. The region’s ocean water, sand, and seaweed make it equally dramatic in high-resolution satellite imagery.

Source: NASA

Haze hovered over eastern China in mid-February 2011, obscuring the coastlines of Bo Hai and the Yellow Sea. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this natural-color image on February 17, 2011. Gray-beige haze blankets the coastal plain and nearby ocean waters. The haze likely results from pollution held in place by a temperature inversion. Air high in the atmosphere is usually cooler than the air near the ground. As warm air rises through the atmosphere, it disperses its pollutants, but when cold air is trapped under a layer of warm air, it cannot rise. Winter temperature inversions are not uncommon in this region, and residents rely on coal for electricity and heat. This combination leads to frequent buildups of haze. Dust from farther inland might also be mixed with the haze in this image

Source: NASA

When this southward-looking photograph was taken by the Expedition 2 crew aboard the International Space Station, the city of Catania (in shadow, ~25 km SSE of the volcano) was covered by a layer of ash and Fontanarossa International Airport was closed. On that day an ash cloud was reported to have reached a maximum height of ~5.2 km. Plumes from two sources are visible here—a dense, darker mass from one of the three summit craters and a lighter, lower one. The record of historical volcanism of Mt. Etna is one of the longest in the world, dating back to 1500 BC. Two styles of activity are typical: explosive eruptions, sometimes with minor lava flows, from the summit craters and flank eruptions from fissures.

Source: NASA

Tropical Storm Florence is the sixth named storm of the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season. Florence started as a tropical depression (area of low air pressure) north and east of the South American coast on September 3, and it grew in power and size very gradually. As of September 11, 2006, it had become a Category 1 hurricane. Its center was not predicted to make landfall, but the inner portions of the hurricane were brushing against Bermuda on September 11 when this image was taken. The storm brought powerful winds, rain, and strong surf as it passed as close as 100 kilometers (60 miles) to the island, according to Reuters. This photo-like image was acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Terra satellite on September 11, 2006, at 11:05 a.m. local time (15:05 UTC). Hurricane Florence at the time of this image was a large, open swirl spread over a wide area of the Atlantic Ocean. Florence had sustained winds of around 145 kilometers per hour (90 miles per hour) at the time this satellite image was acquired, according to the University of Hawaii’s Tropical Storm Information Center.

Source: NASA

The Missouri River spilled over its banks around Glasgow, Missouri, in late June 2010. The Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite captured this natural-color image on June 19, 2010. West of the town of Glasgow, the Missouri River curves toward the south-southwest and then toward the northeast. Immediately west of town, the river takes a sharp turn toward the south. In the bend in the river before its northeastern turn, flooding is apparent. Muddy brown water has collected north of the river, along Epperson Island. More floodwater appears south and west of the river where it curves toward the south-southwest. Additional flooding appears along riverbanks upstream. Patches of off-white on the water surface result from sunglint. Away from the river and the town, the land in this area appears primarily as a patchwork of brown and green croplands interspersed with patches of trees. According to the National Weather Service Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service, the Missouri River’s water level was projected to drop below the major flood stage after June 21. The water level remained well above normal, however, and flood warnings continued for Glasgow and other communities along the Missouri River.

Source: NASA

his view from one of the smaller dune seas in the central Sahara Desert shows the complex but regular patterns produced in deserts where wind and sand both abound. The image is centered at 26.9 North, 7.4 East, over eastern Algeria. Geologists now know that dune seas (also called ergs) exhibit at least three orders of dune size. The biggest dunes, called mega-dunes, probably took hundreds of thousands of years to accumulate, starting when the Sahara began turning arid roughly 2.5 million years ago. Rivers became smaller, failed to reach the sea, and deposited their sand load in the desert. Wind did the rest, blowing the sand into aerodynamic dune forms. Superimposed on the mega-dunes are mesoscale dunes (the prefix meso- means “intermediate.”) Whereas the mega-dunes are apparently stationary, studies based on aerial photographs in other parts of the world show that mesoscale dune crests move in the course of decades. The smallest dunes form and reform the fastest, meandering over the backs of the larger dunes. In this image, the mega-dunes appear as big, rolling lumps that zigzag toward the upper right. The “streets” between these biggest dune chains have been swept clean of sand in places, showing their original surfaces of pale mud and salts. The pale beige-grey of these areas contrasts with the otherwise burnt orange hues. Mesoscale dunes, some of which form octopus-like crests, or star dunes, mark the backs of the mega-dunes. The smallest dunes appear in patches on the eastern sides of the mega-dunes as a tracery of closely spaced crests. Interestingly, the crest orientation of the small dunes differs from the orientation of the mesoscale dunes. This difference is a common effect of local shifts in wind direction, which is influenced by dune height. The orientation trends in the mega-dunes coincide with two of the four major trends identified in the Great Eastern Sand Sea (or Grand Erg Oriental) immediately to the north. Each orientation shift likely implies a shift in the direction of the dominant wind that formed the dunes, attesting to the climate shifts that have occurred since sand began to accumulate in the central Sahara.

Source: NASA

The Great Salt Lake of northern Utah is a remnant of glacial Lake Bonneville that extended over much of present-day western Utah and into the neighboring states of Nevada and Idaho approximately 32,000 to 14,000 years ago. During this time, the peaks of adjacent ranges such as the Promontory and Lakeside Mountains were most likely islands. As climate warmed and precipitation decreased in the region, glaciers that fed meltwater to Lake Bonneville disappeared, and the lake began to dry up. The present-day Great Salt Lake is a terminal lake in that water does not flow out of the lake basin. Water loss through the year is due primarily to evaporation, and when this loss exceeds input of water from rivers, streams, precipitation, and groundwater, the lake level decreases. This is particularly evident during droughts. Evaporation and the relatively shallow water levels (maximum lake depth is around 33 feet), has led to increased salinity (dissolved salt content). The north arm of the lake, displayed in this astronaut photograph from April 30, 2007, typically has twice the salinity of the rest of the lake due to impoundment of water by a railroad causeway that crosses the lake from east to west. The causeway restricts water flow, and the separation has led to a striking division in the types of algae and bacteria found in the north and south arms of the lake. North of the causeway, the red algae Dunaliella salina and the bacterial species Halobacterium produce a pronounced reddish cast to the water, whereas south of the causeway, the water color is dominated by green algae such as Dunaliella viridis. The Great Salt Lake also supports brine shrimp and brine flies; and it is a major stopover point for migratory birds including avocets, stilts, and plovers.

Source: NASA

The Kamchatka Peninsula is one of the most volcanically active regions on Earth. Located in Russia’s Far East region, the peninsula forms the northwestern edge of the Pacific Ring of Fire. At least 114 Kamchatkan volcanoes have erupted in the past 12,000 years. According to the Kamchatka Volcanic Eruption Response Team (KVERT) 4 of these volcanoes—Shiveluch, Klyuchevskaya, Bezymianny, and Karymsky—are erupting currently. This natural-color satellite image shows the 4 active volcanoes on April 2, 2010. Gray and brown ash covers the white snow near Shiveluch, Klyuchevskaya, and Karymsky. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA’s Terra satellite acquired the image

Source: NASA

Dust blew off the coasts of Tunisia and Libya in late November 2010, creating camel-colored plumes over the Mediterranean Sea. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this natural-color image on November 28, 2010. Sand seas cover much of Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya, and some of those sand seas stretch all the way to the coast. The plumes blowing toward the northeast appear to have arisen from sediments near the shoreline. Although dust partially obscures the coastline along the Tunisia-Libya border, skies over Tripoli (also known as Tarabulus) are clear.

Source: NASA

Tropical Storm Manou is bearing down on the east coast of Madagascar in this Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) image from the Terra satellite on May 7, 2003. As of the morning of May 8, the eye of the storm was about 40 miles off the coast Madagascar. Manou was expected to intensify briefly before making landfall, weaken a bit as it moved southward along the coast, and then head back out over the southern Indian Ocean, where it will intensify once again. As of the morning of May 8, the storm had sustained winds of 71 miles per hour. The rainy season in Madagascar is typically November-April, during which time the island, which is located off the southeastern tip of Africa, is subject to tropical cyclones, averaging about 4 per year. The high-resolution image provided above is 500 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response System provides this image at MODIS’ maximum spatial resolution of 250 meters.

Source: NASA

Namib-Naukluft National Park is an ecological preserve in the Namib Desert in southwest Africa, thought to be Earth’s oldest desert. The park is the largest game park in Africa, and a surprising collection of creatures manages to survive in the hyper-arid region, including snakes, geckos, unusual insects, hyenas, and jackals. More moisture comes in as a fog off the Atlantic Ocean than falls as rain, with the average 63 millimeters of rainfall per year concentrated in the months of February and April. The winds that bring in the fog are also responsible for creating the park’s towering sand dunes, whose burnt orange color is a sign of their age. The orange color develops over time as iron in the sand is oxidized (like rusty metal); the older the dune, the brighter the color. These dunes are the tallest in the world, in places rising above the desert floor more than 300 meters (almost 1000 feet). The dunes taper off near the coast, and lagoons, wetlands, and mudflats located along the shore attract hundreds of thousands of birds. This perspective view was created by draping an ASTER color image over an ASTER-derived Digital Elevation Model of the topography. The image was acquired October 14, 2002.

Source: NASA

The Whitsunday Islands are a collection of some 74 islands sandwiched between the Australian mainland and the outer atolls of the Great Barrier Reef. Most of the island chain is protected national park within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, though a number of resorts and camping areas exist on the islands. This photo-like image of the core of the Whitsunday Islands was acquired by the Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) instrument on NASA’s Landsat 7 satellite on May 22, 2003. The entire chain of islands and the outer reef section of the Great Barrier Reef appear in the large image. The scene is dominated by the largest island and namesake of the chain. Deep green forest covers most of Whitsunday Island, which is outlined by brilliant white sand beaches, the largest and most dramatic being Whitehaven Beach at the southeastern end of the island. On Hamilton Island, the strong linear feature at the southern end shows where a jet-accessible runway was added to allow airlines from major Australian cities to fly directly to the islands. The swirls of pale blue around the islands show a mix of sandy bottom waters and shallow, fringing coral reefs. The green land in the southwestern corner of the image is a small section of Conway Ranges National Park, on the shoreline of mainland Queensland. The island’s name comes from the journals of Captain James Cook who sailed through the area in early June 1770. He christened the largest island in honor of the date he arrived, Whit Sunday, the seventh Sunday after Easter. (The name stuck even after it was discovered that a date error meant it was actually Monday when Cook’s ship, the Endeavour, arrived.) The islands, parks, and resorts of the Whitsunday Islands are among the most popular tourist destinations for visitors to the Great Barrier Reef; boat trips from the mainland and Hamilton Island take visitors to the Outer Reef and to destinations in and around the islands. The waters between the mainland and these islands was used during the Second World War as a shelter from storms (and detection by Japanese forces) for the U.S. Navy prior to the Battle of the Coral Sea.

Source: NASA

Algeria’s coast enjoys a Mediterranean climate with mild, wet winters. Inland, however, the terrain is mostly high desert, where mountains and transient rivers interrupt sand seas. In this dry, rugged terrain rests Tin Bider. Geologists suspect that Tin Bider is an impact crater and estimate that it was formed in the past 70 million years, perhaps in the late Cretaceous or early Tertiary Period. Spanning 6 kilometers (4 miles), the structure sits at the southern end of a range of hills. The Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite captured this natural-color image of Tin Bider on December 3, 2010. The desert surface appears in shades of tan, camel, beige, and brown. North-facing slopes are in shadow due to the angle of sunlight from the south. That angle creates an optical illusion, making the crater look as if it sits at a lower elevation than the surrounding land. But Tin Bider actually rises above the land to the south, east, and west. Craters may be simple or complex, depending on the impact that creates it. The elevated position and concentric rings of Tin Bider suggest that it could be a complex crater. The rings likely result from terraces composed of rock that collapsed after the impact. The underlying geology where the impact occurred, however, might also play a role.

Source: NASA This article is copyrighted by International Business Times, the business news leader

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