Every month on Earth Matters, we offer a puzzling satellite image. The April 2020 puzzler is above. Your challenge is to use the comments section to tell us what we are looking at, where it is, and why it is interesting.
How to answer. You can use a few words or several paragraphs. You might simply tell us the location, or you can dig deeper and explain what satellite and instrument produced the image, what spectral bands were used to create it, or what is compelling about some obscure feature. If you think something is interesting or noteworthy, tell us about it.
The prize. We cannot offer prize money or a trip to Mars, but we can promise you credit and glory. Well, maybe just credit. Roughly one week after a puzzler image appears on this blog, we will post an annotated and captioned version as our Image of the Day. After we post the answer, we will acknowledge the first person to correctly identify the image at the bottom of this blog post. We also may recognize readers who offer the most interesting tidbits of information about the geological, meteorological, or human processes that have shaped the landscape. Please include your preferred name or alias with your comment. If you work for or attend an institution that you would like to recognize, please mention that as well.
Recent winners. If you’ve won the puzzler in the past few months, or if you work in geospatial imaging, please hold your answer for at least a day to give less experienced readers a chance.
Releasing Comments. Savvy readers have solved some puzzlers after a few minutes. To give more people a chance, we may wait 24 to 48 hours before posting comments. Good luck!
See our “Filling up Lake Carnegie” Image of the Day for the answer.
I think this looks like the worlds most challenging golf course. Look at all those sand traps! The grass sure it green, though.
Golf was my 1st thought!
Must be corals….. somewhere…
I think this is China because of the details in the satellite picture. It looks like a dragon from a Chinese parade and a person from a Chinese parade.
Georgian Bay Islands National Park
Draining salt flats? Or evaporating pools of nutrient rich water. I’ll guess South America 🙂
Bahia de Halong – Vietnam
I think it is a partially flooded riverdelta, my guess would be Bangladesh, but really no way to tell where.
I see nice sandbars and maybe some houses on them.
Gran Barrera de Coral en Australia
Thatis an imgae of volcanic eurption with underlying water or liquid flow .Looks like water.
Salt lake area NW of Erta Ale volcano?
Grand Canyon
Low tide, in a basin, of crossing currents or protected by from dominant longshore currents.
Possible drought area. Lower than normal water.
Lake Lewis at Australia
A swamp
North Slope
Alaska
USA
Another Candidate:
Baffin Island,
Canada
Or somewhere in between
Lake Qaraoun Lebanon
Abbotts Hall Farm, which is situated on the Blackwater Estuary, along the stretch of the Essex coast. Along with rich with wildlife the unique cut out patterns and pathways resemble the surface of the human brain.
At first I was going to say a Salt marsh but there’s no vegetation and lots of algae, suggesting a heat desert. This looks like flooding. Maybe the Okavango River Delta in Southern Africa that floods seasonally?
https://goo.gl/maps/oswxekQd77TiFuGA9
Appears to be 4 band True Color and taken during winter or the wet season
Lake Carnegie, Australia?
I think it’s the sea’s or ocean’s water receding from an island.
Aral District, Kyzylorda Province, Kazakhstan
I want say some archipelago, but that’s a broad term so I’ll go with the delta region in bay of Bengal.
Looks like sand and water
Tidra, Mauritania
Hello There!
Looks like part of the Mississippi River Delta system.
This appears to be an area along (or near to) the Syr Darya river alluvium where it enters the remnants of the Aral Sea.
Stromatolites in Shark Bay, Australia?
Great Barrier Reef
seasonal water in salt pan dunes desert, Australian Lake Eyre?
Are these flooded tailings from strip mining or dredging? Green is water, brown is the tailings.
You are looking at this picture it is anywhere on earth
It is interesting because in this picture every part/dot (seems like ) a living creatures
Un archipiélago en alguna parte del mundo!
It’s an Aral.sea shrinking photo
Hello,
I think here is a place near the sea,or a beach with a tsunami phenomenon .
It is very interesting.
thank you.
Could it be the islands of SW Florida in everglades national park?
West australia?
Lake Carnegie in Western Australia. It’s an ephemeral lake so this must be after a rare period of rain.
Turkmenbashi Gulf on the Caspian Sea in Turkmenistan.
I was studying for a while the picture….first thing, definitively is an archipielago…..seems like a deserted vegetation islands (of course, it may be that some wavelength was used that blocks vegetation)….I found several small archipelagos in the Red sea, Dahlac Marine national park, Farasan island….BUT…they were too small!….then look for the “world islands” in Dubai, definitively, the picture doesn’t look like man made islands (?! I maybe wrong, thought) and still is too small….things that call my attention, some of the islands have inner lakes…I started to look on river deltas, but their islands are way big, and this picture (with no scale of course!) seems made out of small islands, but bigger than the “world islands”…so, I went to the Everglades, as I remember there were areas that look like the picture…I found an area between Marco Island and Chokoloskee island, made out of “thousand islands”…then, the vegetation, is an issue if we don’t know what wavelength the picture was taken or combination of wavelengths…BUT, it maybe taken after a hurricane passed by that area, the vegetation normally suffers from it or a wavelength was used that do not show vegetation…well, hope is of any good the answer!!!, regards
Caspian Sea dunes, east coast, Turkmenistan.
The ephemeral beauty of Lake Carnegie in Western Australia
Turkmenistan, Caspian sea east coast.
I believe this is in Costa Rica, near Buenas Aires. I came across something just like this on Google Earth recently. Now what exactly we’re looking at here, I have no idea!!
THis is the microscopic image of Corona sample collected.
lake Carnegie, Australia. Credit goes to Parisa Jahan on the Nasa Facebook Timeline.
Brook P is right: Lake Carnegie
The Pantanal in South America