12 spectacular views of the Earth taken by NASA satellites such as 'Crimson Lake' and 'Russian Mysterious Ripples'
The Earth observation satellite '
Landsat ' launched by NASA continues to take a huge number of satellite photographs, which are used in many fields such as science, city planning, and security. Live Science, a science news site, has compiled 12 notable photographs of the satellite images taken by Landsat.
◆ 01: Where the desert ends Below is the northern end of the Namib Desert , located in southwestern Africa, takenby Landsat 8. The reddish-brown part at the bottom of the photo is the Namib Desert, and the upper part is the rocky area. The Kuiseb River runs along the border between the desert and the rocky area.
◆ 02: The colorful transition period of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta The Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta is a delta formed on the west coast of Alaska, USA, where the
Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers flow into the Bering Sea. Known for doing. The following photo taken by Landsat 8 captures the transitional period when the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta plants begin to die.
◆ 03: Russian mysterious ripples
This photo was taken by Landsat 8 on October 29, 2020 around the Markha River in northern Russia. If you look closely at the photo, you can see that the land around the Markha River has ripples like annual rings of trees. There are various theories about the formation of this ripple, such as melting of permafrost and erosion due to rainfall and snowfall, but the process of forming ripples has not been clarified at the time of writing the article.
◆ 04: A pond that grows huge due to the wind
In 2017, a research report was published investigating 'the history of wind erosion in the Mississippi River basin in the United States' using 10,000 photographs taken by Landsat 8. The photo below is one of the 10,000 photos used in the study and was taken on December 1, 2016. The photos are colored to visualize the underwater sediments and have a mysterious atmosphere.
◆ 05: Ginseng farm in northern China Ginseng, which is also popular as a Chinese herbal medicine in Japan, is known to be produced in northeastern China. A satellite photograph of Heilongjiang Provincetaken by Landsat 8 on September 25, 2017 shows a blue or yellow vinyl sheet installed at a ginseng farm.
◆ 06: Pennsylvania hills The image of the hills like the following miniature model is a combination of satellite images of the
Fold Mountains located in Pennsylvania, USA, taken by Landsat 8 on November 9, 2020, and elevation data. Not only the subjects such as Pennsylvania State University are also subjects. According to NASA, this image is impressive, capturing the autumn leaves as well as the unusual terrain created by the deformation of the strata.
◆ 07: Plankton vortex The red tide, which is abundant in the sea, has a great
negative effect on the fishing industry in the area where it occurs, but sometimes the abundant plankton creates a magnificent view. A photograph of the Falkland Islands located on the South Atlantic Ocean taken by Landsat 8 on October 18, 2020 shows plankton floating in a swirling manner.
◆ 08: Crimson Lake
Lake Natron , located near the border between Tanzania and Kenya, is rich in sodium carbonate and calcium carbonate in its water, and turns red as algae that prefer these components grow. According to NASA, the area around Lake Natron has a very harsh environment with an average annual temperature of 40 ° C and precipitation of less than 500 mm.
◆ 09: Clouds moving over the volcano The brown and white haze in the photo below are clouds floating about 1600 km away from Antarctica. A volcano called Mt. Michael is located in the red part at the bottom left of the photo, and the peak of the volcano blocks the flow of clouds, creating a white trajectory.
◆ 10: Ice art in northern Russia The Sanikov Strait, located in the
Novosibirsk Islands in northern Russia, is covered with ice most of the year. The following photo taken by Landsat 8 on June 5, 2016 is from the summer when the ice in the Sanikov Strait melts, and the mesh-like collapsing ice sheet creates an art-like atmosphere.
◆ 11: Ice shelves that change shape depending on the wind
The photo below was taken by Landsat 8 on November 20, 2021. Ice shelves spread out at the bottom of the photo, and finely divided sea ice gathers at the top. And in the center is the needle-shaped ice that was created when the ice shelves and sea ice were separated by the force of the wind.
◆ 12: Where the battery is born Lithium collected from mines and salt lakes is indispensable for the production of lithium-ion batteries, which are widely used in electronic devices such as smartphones. The photo below, taken on November 8, 2018, shows a lithium collection site in Chile. According to NASA, lithium extraction is done by a method similar to salt production, which is to 'pump up and evaporate water containing lithium.' Also, the colors of green and blue are attributed to the different stages of the evaporation process.
