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
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
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
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
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
The Horn of Africa frequently sees heavy precipitation during El Niño periods. In late November 2006, southern Somalia and eastern Ethiopia were experiencing severe flooding that displaced hundreds of thousands of people. These two astronaut photographs show the same coastal region in Somalia, south of the capital of Mogadishu, providing a visual contrast between wet and normal conditions.
Published Mar 5, 2007
The largest city in the Canadian province of Québec and the largest inland port in the world, Montréal takes its name from a distinctive landscape feature at the center of the city. Mont-Royal (“royal mountain” in French) rises to an elevation of 233 meters (about 764 feet) at Colline de la Croix peak.
Published Feb 26, 2007
Barcelona, Spain, occupies a low plateau along the Mediterranean coastal plain. The city is the second largest in Spain (after the capital, Madrid), and it hosts the country’s largest seaport, portions of which are visible in the lower right of the image. This detailed astronaut photograph captures several notable features of the Barcelona urban landscape. The architectural design of the Eixample district (image center) displays a grid pattern distinctive for Barcelona. Built during the 19th and 20th centuries, the district was built with octagonal city blocks—rectangular blocks with the corners cut off. (At the level of detail of this photograph, the blocks appear to be squares.) The original intention was for buildings to occupy only two or three sides of the octagonal blocks, surrounding gardens and open space. While the original street grid pattern remains, today many of the octagonal blocks are completely built up.
Published Feb 19, 2007
Mumbai is a megacity, one whose population is more than 10 million. More than 21 million people live in the greater Mumbai metropolitan region.
Published Feb 5, 2007
Atmospheric gases scatter blue wavelengths of visible light more than other wavelengths, giving the Earth’s visible edge a blue halo. At higher and higher altitudes, the atmosphere becomes so thin that it essentially ceases to exist. Gradually, the atmospheric halo fades into the blackness of space. This astronaut photograph captured on July 20, 2006, shows a nearly translucent moon emerging from behind the halo.
Published Feb 2, 2007
Pagan Island (image right) is made up of two volcanoes connected by a narrow isthmus of land. The volcanoes are stratovolcanoes, which are tall, typically cone-shaped structures formed by layers of dense, crystallized lava and less-dense ash and pumice. Mount Pagan, the larger of the two volcanoes, forms the northeastern portion of the island and has been the most active historically.
Published Jan 29, 2007
What do oceanographers and astronauts have in common? Observations of the complex interactions between different Earth systems, for one. Astronauts aboard the International Space Station routinely observe and photograph the Earth’s surface to visualize the complicated interfaces between the atmosphere, the ocean, the land, and life on the surface. Oceanographers are also interdisciplinary students of the Earth; their interests include geology, chemistry, hydrology, and biology. Currently, a team of scientists is cruising the eastern Pacific Ocean off the coast of Mexico and is preparing for submersible dives on the East Pacific Rise, part of the world’s mid-ocean ridge system.
Published Jan 23, 2007
The city of Gallipoli sits at a crossroads between the Marmara and Aegean Seas, connected by the Dardanelles Strait. he urbanized area of modern Gallipoli is visible as a light gray to pink region at the entrance to the Dardanelles Strait.
Published Jan 22, 2007
In this astronaut photograph from November 16, 2006, sunglint—light reflected directly back to the camera onboard the International Space Station (ISS) from a water surface—accentuates the wetland setting of New Orleans by highlighting the numerous lakes, ponds, and rivers (in various shades of silver-gray) surrounding the city.
Published Jan 15, 2007
Gibraltar Bay, located near the southernmost tip of the Iberian Peninsula, is the central feature of this astronaut photograph. The famous Rock of Gibraltar that forms the northeastern border of the bay is formed of Jurassic-era seafloor sediments that solidified into limestone, a rock formed mostly of the mineral calcite, which is found in the shells of sea creatures. The limestone was subsequently lifted above the ocean surface when the African and Eurasian tectonic plates collided. The cities of La Linea and Algeciras bordering the bay, together with petroleum-processing facilities along the northern shoreline, are part of Spain, whereas the city of Gibraltar itself (to the west of and including the Rock) is under the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom.
Published Jan 8, 2007
Dyess Air Force Base, located near the central Texas city of Abilene, is the home of the 7thBomb Wing and 317th Airlift Groups of the United States Air Force. The main runway is approximately 5 kilometers long, a distance that is necessary to accommodate the large bombers and cargo aircraft at the base. Many of these aircraft are visible in the image, parked in parallel rows on the base tarmac.
Published Jan 1, 2007
The city of Geneva embraces the southern end of Lake Geneva (also known as Lac Léman). Geneva is tucked between two major mountain ranges, the Jura to the northwest (not shown) and the Alps to the southeast. Mount Saleve, near the bottom of the image, represents the northern foothills of the range.
Published Dec 25, 2006
Meltwater from glaciers to the east and west drains into Lake Morari, a large lake that lies at an altitude of 4,521 meters (14,830 feet) on the Tibetan Plateau. A stream on the west side provides the lake’s main inflow. Mud from this river gives the light blue hues to the lake water. The well-formed alluvial fan (image center), built by sediment from the main inflow river, is the reason the lake has formed at this point in the valley.
Published Dec 18, 2006
The formidable mountain system of the Alps stretches across much of central Europe, with seven countries claiming portions of the mountains within their borders: Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Austria, and Slovenia. The glacial landscape of the Bernese Alps, located in southwestern Switzerland, is well illustrated by this astronaut photograph. An astronaut took this picture looking north-northwest while the International Space Station was over the Mediterranean Sea between Corsica and Italy. Three of the higher peaks of the central Alps are visible: Jungfrau at 4,158 meters (13,642 feet); Moench at 4,089 meters (13,415 feet); and Eiger at 3,970 meters (13,025 feet).
Published Dec 11, 2006
The wide, multi-island zone in the Rio Negro (Black River) shown in this astronaut photograph from September 2, 2006, is one of two, long “archipelagoes” upstream of the city of Manaus (not shown) in central Amazonia. Sixty kilometers of the total 120-kilemeter length of this archipelago appear in this image.
Published Dec 4, 2006
Galveston Island has alternately been a home to Native Americans, a base for Mexico’s rebellion against Spain, a pirate kingdom, a sea port, and even the capital of the Republic of Texas. In September 1900, the city was largely destroyed by a powerful hurricane. This storm damage, combined with construction of the Houston Ship Channel and discovery of oil in eastern Texas, shifted the center of trade northwest to Houston. This astronaut photograph shows some of the human impacts in Galveston that are easily observed from the vantage point of low-Earth orbit. The city of Galveston dominates the eastern half of Galveston Island, appearing as the gray-white region at center right. A large seawall along the Gulf of Mexico—shown here along the southern coastline of Galveston Island—protects most of the city. To the west of Galveston, coastal wetlands are largely submerged by regional subsidence—sinking of the land as a result of ground water withdrawal by the petrochemical industry of Houston and Texas City.
Published Nov 27, 2006
North Carolina’s Outer Banks—known as Pine Island in the area shown in this image—protects a network of interconnected waterways, including Currituck Sound, a shallow, 3-mile-wide water body; the North River; and the well-known Albemarle Sound. Wakes from barges on the Intracoastal Waterway appear on the North River, which provides a connection between the Hampton Roads area to the north and Pamlico Sound to the south.
Published Nov 20, 2006
Mined for gold, silver, and copper, the region of Butte, Montana, had already earned the nickname of “The Richest Hill on Earth” by the end of the 19th century.
Published Nov 13, 2006
Taken from an oblique angle and looking toward the southwest, this astronaut photograph shows parts of northern Italy, Corsica, Sardinia, the Adriatic Sea, and the Mediterranean. Over part of the Alps, skies are clear, but elsewhere, the view of the land and sea is largely obscured. Bright white clouds cover much of the region, but over northern Italy, the “clouds” are different. There, dingy, gray-blue haze hangs over the Po River Valley.
Published Nov 6, 2006
In the last three decades, Egypt has greatly modified a series of lagoons and lakes along the northeast coast of the Nile Delta for the production of fish. Partial sunglint in this astronaut photograph reveals numerous details in one such fishery. Sunglint is light reflected directly back from a surface—usually water—to the viewer (or to a camera or satellite sensor). Waves generated by northwesterly winds (lower left to upper right in this view) have created the frond-like sand spit along the coast (image top). Faint sea swells are visible at image upper left as a pattern of dark and light lines. Dark patches in the center of the image are shadows cast by small clouds, which appear pewter-gray compared to the golden sunglint on the watery surfaces below.
Published Oct 30, 2006
The Volga River drains much of western Russia’s industrial region as it travels southward to empty into the Caspian Sea. Over thousands of years, the river has built a tremendous delta that forms the northwestern shoreline of the Caspian Sea. The delta channels provide transportation between the heartland of Russia and the oil-rich Caspian Sea. The Volga’s extensive distributaries (branches to the sea) harbor habitat and rich fishing grounds for Russia’s famous beluga sturgeon, the source of beluga caviar. The delta’s wetlands, parts of which are designated as the Astrakhanskiy Biosphere Reserve, are important stopping points and breeding grounds for migrating water birds. This detailed astronaut photograph zooms in on a shipping channel in the western part of the delta.
Published Oct 23, 2006
Har Nuur (“Black Lake”) is located in western Mongolia’s Valley of Lakes, part of a system of closed basins stretching across central Asia. These basins are the remnants of larger paleolakes (paleo- means “ancient”) that began to shrink approximately five thousand years ago as regional climate became drier. This oblique (looking at an angle) astronaut photograph captures the dynamic nature of the landscape of Har Nuur. The lake is encircled by sand dune fields that encroach on the lower slopes of the Tobhata Mountains to the west and south. Gaps in the mountains have been exploited by sand dunes moving eastward, indicating westerly winds. The most striking example is a series of dunes entering Har Nuur along its southwestern shoreline.
Published Oct 16, 2006
The Franz Josef Strauss, or Munich, International Airport served 29 million passengers in 2005, making it Germany’s second-busiest airport, after Frankfurt. This astronaut photograph, taken from the International Space Station, shows enough detail to distinguish individual airplanes on the terminal apron, and the dark gray-blue rooftop of Terminal 2.
Published Oct 9, 2006
In these images captured by International Space Station astronauts on August 27, 2006, bright sunlight glinting off the western Caribbean Sea reveals intersecting wave patterns and oily surfactants on the surface waters around Bajo Nuevo Reef. Bajo Nuevo is a collection of small islets arranged into two U-shaped cays, low islands made of coral or sand. This pair of images shows the easternmost of the two cays (also known as “keys”) and surrounding waters.
Published Oct 2, 2006
