Lake Amadeus

Lake Amadeus

Like frantic brushstrokes, fire scars cover the arid landscape near Lake Amadeus (upper right) in Australia’s Northern Territory. Lake Amadeus is rich in salts that have been leached out of the underlying sediments. When dry, its lake bed is transformed into a glistening sheet of white salt crystals.

This scene was acquired by the ASTER instrument on NASA’s Terra satellite on January 3, 2003.

Image provided by the USGS EROS Data Center Satellite Systems Branch as part of the Earth as Art II image series