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Our home planet Earth
Mount Saint Helens, Washington, USA  Mount Saint Helens is a prime example of how Earth's topographic form can greatly change even within our lifetimes. The mountain is one of several prominent volcanoes of the Cascade Range that stretches from British Columbia, Canada, southward through Washington, Oregon, and into northern California. Mount Adams (left background) and Mount Hood (right background) are also seen in this view, which was created entirely from elevation data produced by the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission.<BR><BR>Prior to 1980, Mount Saint Helens had a shape roughly similar to other Cascade peaks, a tall, bold, irregular conic form that rose to 2950 meters (9677 feet). However, the explosive eruption of May 18, 1980, caused the upper 400 meters (1300 feet) of the mountain to collapse, slide, and spread northward, covering much of the adjacent terrain (lower left), leaving a crater atop the greatly shortened mountain. Subsequent eruptions built a volcanic dome within the crater, and the high rainfall of this area lead to substantial erosion of the poorly consolidated landslide material.<BR><BR>Eruptions at Mount Saint Helens subsided in 1986, but renewed volcanic activity here and at other Cascade volcanoes is inevitable. Predicting such eruptions still presents challenges, but migration of magma within these volcanoes often produces distinctive seismic activity and minor but measurable topographic changes that can give warning of a potential eruption. Parachute Test  Mars Exploration Rover parachute deployment testing in the world's largest wind tunnel at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffet Field, Calif. Western United States and Southwestern Canada  This natural-color image from the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) captures the beauty of the western United States and Canada. Data from 45 swaths from MISR's vertical-viewing (nadir) camera were combined to create this cloud-free mosaic. The image extends from 48° N 128° W in the northwest, to 32°N, 104° W in the southeast, and has been draped over a shaded relief Digital Terrain Elevation Model from the United States Geological Survey.<BR><BR>The image area includes much of British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan in the north, and extends southward to California, Arizona and New Mexico. The snow-capped Rocky Mountains are a prominent feature extending through British Columbia, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico. Many major rivers originate in the Columbia Plateau region of Washington, Oregon and Idaho. The Colorado Plateau region is characterized by the vibrant red-colored rocks of the Painted Desert in Utah and Arizona, and in New Mexico, White Sands National Park is the large white feature in the Southeast corner of the image with the Malpais lava flow just to its North. The southwest is dominated by the Mojave Desert of California and Nevada, California's San Joaquin Valley, the Los Angeles basin and the Pacific Ocean.
Crater Copernicus on the Moon  A close-up view of Copernicus' terraced walls. Hubble can resolve features as small as 280 feet across. The Hubble Space Telescope and the Faint Object Spectrograph  This illustration shows the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope in orbit above the Earth as it looked before the Second Servicing Mission in 1997. The Faint Object Spectrograph (FOS) can be seen (marked in yellow) in Hubbles instrument bay at the back of the observatory. During the Second Servicing Mission the two first generation instruments, FOS and the Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph (GHRS), were replaced by the second generation instruments, NICMOS (Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer) and STIS (Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph). A dedicated team effort to understand and correct systematic effects in observations from FOS has now been concluded and the results are released on 11 September 2001. A four-person team based at the Space Telescope-European Coordinating Facility (ST-ECF) in Garching, Germany, has carried out this re-calibration with support from scientists at the Space Telescope Science Institute and the Goddard Space Flight Center. ST-ECFs 'Instrument Physical Modelling Group' has expended ten man-years of effort in understanding the intricate details of the instrument and in developing a novel physical model of its operation. This has allowed them to develop routines to correct for unwanted instrumental and environmental effects in the measurements of stars and galaxies. Mississippi River Delta  As the Mississippi River enters the Gulf of Mexico, it loses energy and dumps its load of sediment that it has carried on its journey through the mid continent. This pile of sediment, or mud, accumulates over the years building up the delta front. As one part of the delta becomes clogged with sediment, the delta front will migrate in search of new areas to grow. The area shown on this image is the currently active delta front of the Mississippi. The migratory nature of the delta forms natural traps for oil. Most of the land in the image consists of mud flats and marsh lands. There is little human settlement in this area due to the instability of the sediments. The main shipping channel of the Mississippi River is the broad stripe running northwest to southeast.<BR><BR>This image was acquired on May 24, 2001 by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA's Terra satellite. With its 14 spectral bands from the visible to the thermal infrared wavelength region, and its high spatial resolution of 15 to 90 meters (about 50 to 300 feet), ASTER will image Earth for the next 6 years to map and monitor the changing surface of our planet.<BR><BR>ASTER is one of five Earth-observing instruments launched December 18,1999, on NASA's Terra satellite. The instrument was built by Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. A joint U.S./Japan science team is responsible for validation and calibration of the instrument and the data products. Dr. Anne Kahle at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, is the U.S. Science team leader; Bjorn Eng of JPL is the project manager. The Terra mission is part of NASA's Earth Science Enterprise, a long-term research and technology program designed to examine Earth's land, oceans, atmosphere, ice and life as a total integrated system.<BR><BR>The broad spectral coverage and high spectral resolution of ASTER will provide scientists in numerous disciplines with critical information for surface mapping, and monitoring dynamic conditions and temporal change. Example applications are: monitoring glacial advances and retreats; monitoring potentially active volcanoes; identifying crop stress; determining cloud morphology and physical properties; wetlands evaluation; thermal pollution monitoring; coral reef degradation; surface temperature mapping of soils and geology; and measuring surface heat balance.
Wetlands of the Gulf Coast  This set of images from the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer highlights coastal areas of four states along the Gulf of Mexico: Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and part of the Florida panhandle. The images were acquired on October 15, 2001 (Terra orbit 9718)and represent an area of 345 kilometers x 315 kilometers. The two smaller images on the right are (top) a natural color view comprised of red, green, and blue band data from MISR's nadir(vertical-viewing) camera, and (bottom) a false-color view comprised of near-infrared, red, and blue band data from the same camera. The predominantly red color of the false-color image is due to the presence of vegetation, which is bright at near-infrared wavelengths. Cities appear as grey patches, with New Orleans visible at the southern edge of Lake Pontchartrain, along the left-hand side of the images. The Lake Pontchartrain Bridge runs approximately north-south across the middle of the lake. The distinctive shape of the Mississippi River Delta can be seen to the southeast of New Orleans. Other coastal cities are visible east of the Mississippi, including Biloxi, Mobile and Pensacola.<BR><BR>The large image is similar to the true-color nadir view, except that red band data from the 60-degree backward-looking camera has been substituted into the red channel; the blue and green data from the nadir camera have been preserved. In this visualization, green hues appear somewhat subdued, and a number of areas with a reddish color are present, particularly near the mouths of the Mississippi, Pascagoula, Mobile-Tensaw, and Escambia Rivers. Here, the red color is highlighting differences in surface texture. This combination of angular and spectral information differentiates areas with aquatic vegetation associated with poorly drained bottom lands, marshes, and/or estuaries from the surrounding surface vegetation. These wetland regions are not as well differentiated in the conventional nadir views.<BR><BR>Variations in ocean color are apparent in all three views, and represent the outflow of suspended sediment from the seabed shelf to the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Major features include the Mississippi Delta, where large amounts of land-derived sediments have been deposited in shallow coastal waters. These deltaic environments form a complex, interconnected web of estuarine channels and extensive coastal wetlands that provide important habitat for fisheries. The city of New Orleans is prone to flooding, with about 45% of the metropolitan core situated at or below sea level. The city is protected by levees, but the wetlands which also function as a buffer from storm surges have been disappearing. Malaspina Glacier, Alaska, Perspective with Landsat Overlay  Malaspina Glacier in southeastern Alaska is considered the classic example of a piedmont glacier. Piedmont glaciers occur where valley glaciers exit a mountain range onto broad lowlands, are no longer laterally confined, and spread to become wide lobes. Malaspina Glacier is actually a compound glacier, formed by the merger of several valley glaciers, the most prominent of which seen here are Agassiz Glacier (left) and Seward Glacier (right). In total, Malaspina Glacier is up to 65 kilometers (40 miles) wide and extends up to 45 kilometers (28 miles) from the mountain front nearly to the sea. North America  This natural-color image combines cloud-free data from over 500 Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) orbits with shaded relief Digital Terrain Elevation models from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) and other sources. An astonishing diversity of geological features, ecological systems and human landscapes across North America is indicated within the image, which spans from 56N, 136W at the upper left to 16N 48W at lower right.
Space radar image of Mississippi River  This image of the Mississippi River in Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana shows regions of the southern United States that are prone to flooding. Data acquired by the Spaceborne Imaging Radar-C/X-band Synthetic Aperture imaging radar system, which flew on two space shuttle missions in April and October 1994, can help scientists assess flooding potentials and improve land management for future agricultural development. This image was acquired on October 9, 1994, during orbit 151 of the space shuttle Endeavour. The image is centered at about 32.75 degrees north latitude and 90.5 degrees west longitude and covers an area of about 23 kilometers by 40 kilometers (14.2 miles by 24.8 miles). North is toward the upper right of the image. The different colors represent the data return in different radar channels: red is L-band, vertically transmitted and received; green is L-band vertically transmitted and horizontally received; and blue is C-band vertically transmitted and received. This site along the Mississippi River lies north of Vicksburg along the Arkansas-Louisiana-Mississippi state borders. The river marks the stateline. Louisiana and Arkansas lie above the river and Mississippi is below the river. This region is characterized by rich farmland where a variety of crops are grown. The town located in the extreme upper left hand corner is Eudora, Arkansas. The long, narrow lakes which lie roughly parallel to the river are called oxbow lakes, named for the U-shaped harness worn by an ox. Oxbows are formed when a river changes course, abandoning old channels in favor of a new course. As the river changes course, the surrounding land dries out, leaving these lakes isolated. Oxbow lakes are common in areas where rivers flow through generally flat terrain, allowing the river to easily change course. The green regions bordering the river are undeveloped forested areas The Earth & Moon  During its flight, the Galileo spacecraft returned images of the Earth and Moon. Separate images of the Earth and Moon were combined to generate this view. The Galileo spacecraft took the images in 1992 on its way to explore the Jupiter system in 1995-97. The image shows a partial view of the Earth centered on the Pacific Ocean about latitude 20 degrees south. The west coast of South America can be observed as well as the Caribbean; swirling white cloud patterns indicate storms in the southeast Pacific. The distinct bright ray crater at the bottom of the Moon is the Tycho impact basin. The lunar dark areas are lava rock filled impact basins. Multi-layer Clouds Over the South Indian Ocean  The complex structure and beauty of polar clouds are highlighted by these images acquired by the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) on April 23, 2003. These clouds occur at multiple altitudes and exhibit a noticeable cyclonic circulation over the Southern Indian Ocean, to the north of Enderbyland, East Antarctica.
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