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14 gorgeous photos of Earth from above

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a land mass surrounded by water

Located in the heart of the Iranian plateau, the Dasht-e Kavir, also known as the Great Salt Desert, ranks as the 24th largest desert on Earth. Its desolate sand dunes and surrounding mountain range present a striking and picturesque sight from ground level. However, a different perspective emerges when viewed from above. In 2000, the Landsat 7 satellite, operated by the US Geological Survey, captured a breathtaking image of the Dasht-e Kavir from a bird’s eye view.

The Dasht-e Kavir, or Great Salt Desert, is the largest desert in Iran. It is primarily uninhabited wasteland, composed of mud and salt marshes covered with crusts of salt that protect the meager moisture from completely evaporating. This image was taken by the Landsat 7 satellite on October 24, 2000. It is a false-color composite image made using infrared, green, and red wavelengths. The image has also been sharpened using the sensor’s panchromatic band.
Credit: NASA/USGS Landsat 7; NASA Earth Observatory

Aside from the Landsat 7 satellite, other spacecraft and astronauts aboard the International Space Station have captured stunning images of Earth from above. These images range from the landscapes of Georgia, USA, to the islands of New Caledonia in the South Pacific.

bright waters meet the coast
In a dense swampland in Georgia, just north of the Florida border, you find the headwaters of the Suwannee River (upper right). The Suwannee is known as a “blackwater river” because of its dark-brown waters laden with organic material. This river system has been called one of the most pristine in the United States, but some environmental pressures are putting that distinction in jeopardy.

Unlike other blackwater rivers, the Suwannee maintains its inky color along its entire 400-kilometer (250-mile) journey to the sea. When the river finally meets the Gulf of Mexico along Florida’s Big Bend—that portion of coast where the state’s panhandle curves to meet its peninsula—its dark waters act like a tracer, revealing where the river water mixes with the sea.

That mixing was on display on February 20, 2015, when the Operational Land Imager on NASA’s Landsat 8 satellite captured this view.
Credit: NASA Earth Observatory image by Dr. Alice Alonso, using Landsat satellite data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Caption adapted from Laura Rocchio, NASA Landsat Science Outreach.

ice swirls in blue water
Like distant galaxies amid clouds of interstellar dust, chunks of sea ice drift through graceful swirls of grease ice in the frigid waters of Foxe Basin near Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic. Sea ice often begins as grease ice, a soupy slick of tiny ice crystals on the ocean’s surface. As the temperature drops, grease ice thickens and coalesces into slabs of more solid ice.

This image was acquired on August 4, 2002, by the Landsat 7 satellite.
Credit: USGS/NASA/Landsat 7

water and land in fractured spikes

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