Though the Aral Sea has been steadily shrinking over the past decade, this true-color image from August 2010 shows slight growth in the southern sea as water flowed into it from the Amu Darya for the first time since 2008.
Published Oct 30, 2010
In 1964, it was the world's fourth largest lake. Thanks to irrigation projects, now it is mostly gone.
Published Feb 24, 2012
Once the world’s fourth largest lake, the rapidly shrinking Aral Sea has fragmented into four bodies of water. The Southern Aral Sea and Tsche-Bas Gulf show the most dramatic change in 2011.
Published Sep 11, 2011
Once part of the fourth-largest lake in the world, the eastern lobe of the southern Aral has dried up for the first time in modern history.
Published Sep 26, 2014
A wet year can bring a surge of water to this inland lake in Central Asia.
Published Sep 1, 2017
The sequence of images shows the dramatic changes to the Aral Sea between 1973 and 2000.
Published May 5, 2001
The eastern basin of the South Aral Sea is shallow and more prone to size fluctuations than its neighbors.
Published May 21, 2018
Water shortages in the Middle East lead to sanitation issues in schools, resulting in periodic school closures. NASA is working to change that.
Published Jul 27, 2018
stronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) took this image of a major dust storm (image center and right) along the east side of the Aral Sea while passing over central Asia in the spring of 2007. The white, irregular lines along the bottom of the image are salt and clay deposits on the present coastline. The day that the ISS crew shot the image, winds were blowing from the west (lower left).
Published Nov 5, 2007
The images above, collected by the Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) flying aboard NASA's Terra satellite, show how the Aral Sea has changed over the last year (from June 9, 2000, to June 3, 2001).
Published Aug 25, 2001
In the first half of the twentieth century, it was the world’s fourth-largest lake. By August 2009, virtually nothing remained of the largest lobe.
Published Aug 27, 2009
