Astronaut Photography

Simushir Island, Kuril Archipelago
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Simushir Island, Kuril Archipelago

Simushir is a deserted, 5-mile-wide volcanic island in the Kuril Islands chain, half way between northern Japan and the Kamchatka Peninsula of Russia. Four volcanoes—Milne, Prevo, Urataman, and Zavaritski—have built cones tall enough to rise above the green forest. The remaining remnant of Zavaritski Volcano is a caldera, formed when a volcano collapses into its emptied magma chamber.

Published Sep 17, 2007

Image of the Day Land

Nardo Ring, Italy
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Nardo Ring, Italy

The Nardò Ring is a striking visual feature from space, and astronauts have photographed it several times. The Ring is a race car test track; it is 12.5 kilometers long and steeply banked to reduce the amount of active steering needed by drivers. Although it is a perfect circle, it appears oval in this photograph. This distortion is because the astronaut’s viewing angle was 35 degrees, looking back along the orbit track to the southwest from the International Space Station’s window.

Published Sep 10, 2007

Image of the Day Land Life

Shiveluch Volcano, Russia’s Far East
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Shiveluch Volcano, Russia’s Far East

Shiveluch is one of the biggest and most active of a line of volcanoes that follow the spine of the Kamchatka Peninsula in easternmost Russia. The volcanoes and peninsula are part of the tectonically active “Ring of Fire,” a zone of active volcanoes and frequent earthquakes that nearly surrounds the Pacific Ocean.

Published Sep 3, 2007

Image of the Day Land

Ceuta, Northern Africa
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Ceuta, Northern Africa

he southern tip of Spain and the northern tip of Africa come close to touching at the Strait of Gibraltar. The small Spanish enclave Ceuta occupies a narrow isthmus of land on the African side of the Strait of Gibraltar; the rest of the surrounding territory is Morocco.

Published Aug 27, 2007

Image of the Day Land Life

Hurricane Dean
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Hurricane Dean

While weather and Earth science satellites are known for getting a perspective on storms as they orbit the Earth, they were not the only sensors viewing Hurricane Dean from high above. Astronauts aboard the International Space Station and the crew of the Space Shuttle Endeavour passed over the storm on August 18.

Published Aug 20, 2007

Atmosphere Water Severe Storms

Smoke Plumes over Idaho and Montana
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Smoke Plumes over Idaho and Montana

On August 13, 2007, while docked to the International Space Station (ISS), the crew members of Shuttle Mission STS-118 and ISS Expedition 15 reported seeing the smoke plumes from wide-spread fires across Idaho and Montana. The crew photographed and downlinked images of isolated plumes and regional views of the smoke from different perspectives.

Published Aug 20, 2007

Image of the Day Atmosphere Land Dust and Haze Fires

Polar Mesospheric Clouds
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Polar Mesospheric Clouds

In June 2007, the Space Shuttle crew visiting the International Space Station (ISS) observed spectacular polar mesospheric clouds over north-central Asia. TThe red-to-dark region at the bottom of the image is the dense part of the Earth’s atmosphere.

Published Aug 13, 2007

Image of the Day Atmosphere

Bechar Basin, Algeria
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Bechar Basin, Algeria

The Béchar Basin of northwest Algeria formed as layers of sedimentary rocks from the Paleozoic Era (250-540 million years ago) folded and cracked during collisions of Africa and Europe during the Tertiary Period (2-65 million years ago). In this photograph of part of the basin captured by astronauts, dark brown to tan folded ridges of these Paleozoic sedimentary layers extend across the image from top to bottom.

Published Aug 6, 2007

Image of the Day Land

Brooklyn, New York Waterfront
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Brooklyn, New York Waterfront

his astronaut photograph captures the dense urban fabric of Brooklyn, New York City’s largest borough (population of 2.6 million), characterized by the regular pattern of highly reflective building rooftops (white). Two main arteries from Manhattan into Brooklyn—the famous Brooklyn Bridge and neighboring Manhattan Bridge—cross the East River along the left (north) side of the image.

Published Jul 30, 2007

Image of the Day Land Life

Upheaval Dome, Utah
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Upheaval Dome, Utah

Upheaval Dome is a striking geologic structure in the Canyonlands National Park of southern Utah. The alternating rock layers make a nearly circular, 5.5-kilometer- (3.4-mile-) diameter “bull’s-eye.” This photograph of Upheaval Dome was taken by an astronaut onboard the International Space Station. The oblique viewing angle—in other words, not looking straight down—provides a sense of the topography within and around the structure. The dome appears more like an ellipse than a circle due to the oblique viewing perspective.

Published Jul 23, 2007

Image of the Day Land

Algae in Great Salt Lake
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Algae in Great Salt Lake

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. 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.

Published Jul 16, 2007

Image of the Day Life

Maracaibo City and Oil Slick, Venezuela
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Maracaibo City and Oil Slick, Venezuela

This astronaut photograph depicts the narrow strait between Lake Maracaibo and the Gulf of Venezuela. The brackish lake sits on top of a vast reservoir of buried oil deposits.

Published Jul 9, 2007

Image of the Day Land Water

Patuxent River Naval Air Station, Maryland
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Patuxent River Naval Air Station, Maryland

Maryland’s Patuxent River Naval Air Station is located on a small peninsula, bordered by the Patuxent River to the north-northeast and Chesapeake Bay to the east and southeast. International Space Station crews frequently use the Patuxent River Naval Air Station as a geographic reference point and photographic training target. This astronaut photograph illustrates why—the distinctive pattern of the airfield runways and the station’s location in Chesapeake Bay make it easy to spot from orbit.

Published Jul 2, 2007

Image of the Day Land Water

Grey Glacier, Chile
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Grey Glacier, Chile

The Southern Patagonian Icefield of Chile and Argentina hosts several spectacular glaciers—including Grey Glacier located in the Torres del Paine National Park in Chile. This glacier, which in 1996 had a measured total area of 270 square kilometers and a length of 28 kilometers (104 square miles in area, 17 miles long), begins in the Patagonian Andes Mountains to the west and terminates in three distinct lobes into Grey Lake (upper image).

Published Jun 25, 2007

Image of the Day Land

Iceberg A22A, South Atlantic Ocean
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Iceberg A22A, South Atlantic Ocean

The iceberg A22A was photographed when it was about a third of the distance from South America towards Cape Town, South Africa. A22A is one of the largest icebergs to drift as far north as 50 degrees south latitude, bringing it beneath the daylight path of the International Space Station (ISS). A series of parallel lines can be seen in the lower image. These are probably “hummocks,” dunes of snow that have solidified, and they date back to the time when the iceberg was connected to Antarctica. A developing fracture in the ice can be seen in the lower, detailed view.

Published Jun 18, 2007

Image of the Day Water Snow and Ice

Southern Everglades National Park, Florida
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Southern Everglades National Park, Florida

Everglades National Park in southern Florida is the largest subtropical wilderness in the United States. Known as the “river of grass,” the Everglades wetlands and wooded uplands host a variety of endangered species including crocodiles, manatees, and panthers.

Published Jun 11, 2007

Image of the Day Land Water

Den Helder, Netherlands
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Den Helder, Netherlands

The city and harbor of Den Helder in the northern Netherlands has been the home port of the Dutch Royal Navy for over 175 years. The location provides access to the North Sea, which has made it an important commercial and strategic port. Bright red agricultural fields to the south of Den Helder indicate another noteworthy aspect of the region—commercial farming of tulips and hyacinth.

Published Jun 4, 2007

Image of the Day Land Water

Concepcion Volcano, Nicaragua
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Concepcion Volcano, Nicaragua

Concepción Volcano is one of the tallest and most active of Nicaragua’s volcanoes. The 1,610-meter (5,280-foot), cone-shaped volcano is the northern half of dumbbell-shaped Isla de Ometepe. To the northwest of the crater, a very faint plume (probably steam) creeps like fog down the mountain, blurring the sharp gullies that carve the volcano’s flanks.

Published May 29, 2007

Image of the Day Atmosphere Land

Monteregian Hills, Quebec, Canada
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Monteregian Hills, Quebec, Canada

This astronaut photograph of the area to the east of Montreal, Canada, captures two striking patterns. The circular features are the central members of a group of unusual rock formations known as the Monteregian Hills: Mont St. Hilaire, Rougemont, and Mont Yamaska. The rectangular pattern blanketing the landscape in the background reveals the intensive agriculture in the fertile lowlands in southern Quebec.

Published May 28, 2007

Image of the Day Land

Salt Ponds, Botswana
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Salt Ponds, Botswana

This detailed astronaut photograph shows the salt ponds of one of Africa’s major producers of soda ash (sodium carbonate) and salt. Soda ash is used for making glass, in metallurgy, in the detergent industry, and in chemical manufacture. The image shows a small part of the great salt flats of central Botswana known as the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans.

Published May 13, 2007

Image of the Day Land

November 2006 Smog Event, U.S. Northeast
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November 2006 Smog Event, U.S. Northeast

Images of haze over the northeastern United States are shown for November 2006.

Published May 7, 2007

Image of the Day Atmosphere

Kwangju, South Korea
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Kwangju, South Korea

Kwangju (or Gwangju) Metropolitan City is the fifth largest urban area in South Korea. With a population of 1.4 million people, it is a major economic and cultural center for the southern portion of the country. The city is located in a geographic basin with high mountains to the east—the mountain of Mudeungsan has a peak elevation of 1,140 meters (3,740 feet)—and more open plains to the west.

Published Apr 30, 2007

Image of the Day Land

Venice, Italy
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Venice, Italy

A space-based perspective of the city of Venice quickly reveals different development and land uses in the region; the major islands in the lagoon surrounding Venice—Laguna Veneta—look different from one another. The island of Venice itself, a dense urban landscape, appears almost uniformly covered with red-tiled roofs. By contrast, port facilities and the train station at the west end of the island appear in shades of gray.

Published Apr 23, 2007

Image of the Day Land

Isles of Scilly, UK
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Isles of Scilly, UK

The Isles of Scilly, an archipelago of approximately 150 islands, are located some 44 kilometers southwest of the westernmost point of England (Land’s End). They have been inhabited for over 4,000 years, and historical and geological evidence on the Isles indicates that many of the islands were larger and/or connected in the recent past.

Published Apr 16, 2007

Image of the Day Land Water

Plume at Shiveluch Volcano, Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia
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Plume at Shiveluch Volcano, Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia

Shiveluch, one of Kamchatka’s most active volcanoes, began its latest activity with gas and steam emissions in mid- to late March 2007. This image was taken by astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) around mid-morning on or around March 21, 2007. It shows a steam plume, probably containing minor amounts of ash, blowing westward from the summit of the volcano. The astronauts were crossing over the southern tip of Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula, with a clear view of the volcano about 5 degrees north of the ground track of the ISS. Subsequent eruptions on March 29 and 30 have been recorded by the Kamchatka Volcano Observatory and NASA satellites.

Published Apr 9, 2007

Image of the Day Land

Plume at Mount Bagana, Bouganville Island
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Plume at Mount Bagana, Bouganville Island

Bouganville Island is geographically part of the Solomon Islands chain to the east of Papua New Guinea. (Politically, the island is part of Papua New Guinea.) Bouganville is typical of many Pacific Rim islands in that volcanism has played a large part in both its geological and recorded history. The island hosts three large volcanoes along its northwest-southeast trending axis: Mount Balbi, Mount Bagana, and the Mount Takuan volcanic complex. Mount Bagana, located near image center in this astronaut photograph, is the only historically active volcano on the island.

Published Apr 8, 2007

Image of the Day Land Volcanoes

Montevideo, Uruguay
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Montevideo, Uruguay

Reflective roofing materials and dark asphalt streets outline the urban grid pattern of Uruguay’s capital city, Montevideo, in this astronaut photograph. The city may be viewed as a precursor of a global population shift from dominantly rural to urban environments, a shift the United Nations estimates will occur by 2030. Nearly half of Uruguay’s total population now lives in the Montevideo metropolitan area. Located on the southern coastline of Uruguay along the Rio de la Plata, Montevideo Bay provides an important harbor and port facilities for transport of South American agricultural products.

Published Apr 2, 2007

Image of the Day Land Human Presence

Guanaja Island, Honduras
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Guanaja Island, Honduras

Guanaja Island is located in the western Caribbean, approximately 60 kilometers (about 37 miles) north of mainland Honduras. The island is near the western edge of the Cayman Ridge, a topographic feature made of rock types that indicate ancient volcanic islands, sedimentary layers, and ocean crust. The ridge resulted from tectonic interactions between the North American, South American, and Caribbean Plates. Guanaja and the nearby islands of Roatan and Utila (not shown) are the only portions of the western Cayman Ridge currently exposed above water.

Published Mar 26, 2007

Image of the Day Land

Caravelas Strandplain, Bahia Province, Brazil
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Caravelas Strandplain, Bahia Province, Brazil

This astronaut photograph highlights an ancient shoreline, or strandplain, on the coast of Brazil. The image is dominated by numerous fine, parallel lines (trending diagonally from upper left to lower right), each of which is an ancient shoreline made up of sand transported from rivers to the north.

Published Mar 19, 2007

Image of the Day Land

Bahia Blanca, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina
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Bahia Blanca, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina

The port city of Bahía Blanca lies almost 600 kilometers southwest of Buenos Aires on the southern rim of the Argentine economic heartland. This small city of 275,000 people is located near the mouth of the Arroyo Naposta.

Published Mar 12, 2007

Image of the Day Land