More than a month after the April 20 Deepwater Horizon accident, oil from the accident lingered near the Mississippi Delta. Sunlight reflecting off the sea surface (or sunglint) illuminated the oil for the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite on May 22, 2010. In this natural-color image, the oil slick east-southeast of the delta appears dull gray. Sediment-laden water from the Mississippi is muddy-brown. Due south of the delta, oil-slicked water appears to brush up against sediment-rich water, although the exact boundary of the oil slick is unclear.
NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team. Caption by Michon Scott.
