Captions for Orbital Vistas

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Great Salt Lake, Utah. The color difference is caused by microorganisms trapped on one side of a causeway spanning the lake. (44k jpg)
Courtesy of EROS Data Center, U.S. Geological Survey

The Grand Canyon. (56k jpg)
Courtesy of EROS Data Center, US Geological Survey

Landsat Mosaic of Hawaii. (43k jpg)
Image supplied by NASA's Virtually Hawaii project

Hubbard Glacier, Alaska. (48k jpg)
Courtesy of EROS Data Center, US Geological Survey

Landsat scene of Mt. St. Helens before its violent eruption in May, 1980. (107k jpg)
Courtesy of ERIM International, Inc.

Landsat scene of Mt. St. Helens after its violent eruption in May, 1980. (82k jpg)
Courtesy of ERIM International, Inc.

First camera to provide motion pictures of the Earth's surface from an altitude of greater than 480 kilometers (300 miles). (33k jpg)

The Atlas Mountains of North Africa were photographed by John Glenn on the flight of Friendship 7 in 1962. (22k jpg)
NASA Photograph

The coast of Florida as seen from a Mercury spacecraft at an altitude of about 160 kilometers (100 miles). (17k jpg)
NASA Photograph

John Glenn photographed clouds over the Pacific Ocean on the first orbit of his Mercury flight. (17k jpg)
NASA Photograph

Ansco Autoset 35mm camera used by John Glenn on Friendship 7, the first US manned orbital mission. Glenn used standard and ultraviolet-sensitive film in the camera which had been modified for left-handed operation. (29k jpg)
NASA Photograph

Gemini photo of sand dunes in western Algeria. (41k jpg)
NASA Photograph

Gemini 12 photo of the Makran Ranges of Iran and the Strait of Hormuz taken in 1966. (27k jpg)
NASA Photograph

Gemini Camera
Gemini camera used in astronaut training. The Hasselblad camera with a Zeiss lens is similar to an Earth observation camera carried on the later Gemini missions. (32k jpg)

Apollo 9 scene of desert terrain in central Algeria in 1969. (35k jpg)
NASA Photograph

Remote region of Mauritania as viewed by Apollo 9. The circular feature is the Richat structure. The eroded dome structure is 40 kilometers (about 25 miles) wide. (27k jpg)
NASA Photograph

Scene of Pyramid Lake in Western Nevada taken with the Skylab Earth terrain camera. (43k jpg)
NASA Photograph

Lake Sakakawea cuts across the terrain of North Dakota in this photograph from the Skylab 3 mission in 1973. (69k jpg)
NASA Photograph

In 1975, American astronauts on the joint US/U.S.S.R. Apollo-Soyuz Test Project photographed this view of sand dunes in Argentina. (51k jpg)
NASA Photograph

Apollo-Soyuz scene looking south over the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Suez, and the Red Sea. (23k jpg)

Image of European lights in the visible range at night. (17k gif)
Courtesy of National Snow and Ice Data Center

City lights. Major US cities are highlighted in this night view taken by the Defense Meteorological Satellite. (11k gif)
Courtesy of National Snow and Ice Data Center

Hand-held camera photo of sand dunes in Algeria from the second Space Shuttle mission. (28k jpg)
NASA Photograph

Space Shuttle view of the Great Salt Lake in Utah. (46k jpg)
NASA Photograph

Flown on the Space Shuttle in October 1984, the Large Format Camera provided more than 2000 black-and-white, color, and infrared photographs of the Earth's surface. (19k jpg)
Full scale model on display in the Museum courtesy of Itek Corporation

Encounter Bay, on the south coast of Australia is shown on this false color full frame image from the Large Format Camera. (32k jpg)
Courtesy of NSSDC, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

A small portion of a Large Format Camera scene was enlarged to show this view of the city of Venice (top left) and the mouth of the Po River. (50k jpg)
Courtesy of NSSDC, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

Spacelab Metric Camera view of the east coast of Africa. (43k jpg)
European Space Agency Photograph, courtesy of DLR

Western China as viewed by the Spacelab Metric camera. (77k jpg)
European Space Agency Photograph, courtesy of DLR

The Multi-spectral scanner (MSS) is a sensor that was carried on the first 6 Landsat satellites. (23k jpg)
The Museum's MSS is an engineering model provided by NASA and Santa Barbara Remote Sensing

The Thematic Mapper is an imaging sensor used on the Landsat 4 and 5 satellites. (46k jpg)
Full-scale model on display in Museum courtesy of Hughes Aircraft Company

The farmlands of Southern Louisiana (bright green) contrast sharply with the local wetlands in this 1992 Thematic Mapper scene. Nestled between Lake Ponchartrain and the Mississippi River is the city of New Orleans. (73k jpg)
Courtesy of EROS Data Center, US Geological Survey

Las Vegas, Nevada. The city of Las Vegas can be seen just west of Lake Mead on this Thematic Mapper scene. One of the largest man-made lakes in the world, Lake Mead was formed by the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River. (58k jpg)
Courtesy of ERIM International, Inc.

The Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) is the new sensor flown on the Landsat 7 satellite. (53k jpg)
NASA Photograph

Cape Canaveral, the launch site for America's space exploration programs. The Kennedy Space Center (center) and Space Shuttle runway (top) can be seen clearly in this Landsat 7 image. (54k jpg)
Courtesy of EROS Data Center, US Geological Survey

This ETM+ image from September 1999 reveals the after-effects of Hurricane Floyd on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Flooding from the storm destroyed 7,000 homes and caused severe agricultural damage throughout the eastern portion of the state. (70k jpg)
Courtesy of EROS Data Center, US Geological Survey

The Missouri River in the fall of 1993. This Landsat TM image shows the river before the flood. (59k jpg)
Courtesy of EROS Data Center, US Geological Survey

The Missouri River in the fall of 1993. This Landsat TM image shows the river at the peak of the flood. (51k jpg)
Courtesy of EROS Data Center, US Geological Survey

The Missouri River in the fall of 1993. This Landsat TM image shows the river after the flood. (54k jpg)
Courtesy of EROS Data Center, US Geological Survey

These Landsat scenes vividly illustrate how much damage gypsy moths can inflict on forested regions. The red color represents healthy vegetation. This scene is from May 1977. (75k jpg)
Courtesy of D. Williams, Goddard Space Flight Center

These Landsat scenes vividly illustrate how much damage gypsy moths can inflict on forested regions. The red color represents healthy vegetation. This scene is from July 1977. (75k jpg)
Courtesy of D. Williams, Goddard Space Flight Center

This Landsat image shows cornfields in Kansas planted using a circular irrigation pattern. The blue areas indicate healthy corn while the pink represents areas damaged by lack of water. (46k jpg)
Courtesy of Patricia Jacobberger-Jellison

Landsat images have been used to map sites of possible archaeological interest. Study of this image helped scientists to locate the lost city of Ubar in Southern Oman, on the Arabian Peninsula. (71k jpg)
Courtesy of Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Apollo 9 view in the visible range. Southern California's Salton Sea is bordered by a patchwork of irrigated crops and farmlands. In contrast to the fertile agricultural region, desert sands of the Algodones Dune Field stretch for 60 kilometers (about 40 miles) to the southeast. (41k jpg)
NASA Photograph

Apollo 9 scene taken with color infrared film. In this view, vegetation is indicated by the red color. The straight boundary marking changes in farming patterns is the border with Mexico. (39k jpg)
NASA Photograph

This Landsat image of a portion of the Apollo 9 scene uses a combination of near-infrared and visible wavelengths. (67k jpg)
Courtesy of US Geological Survey

Thermal infrared image from the Heat Capacity Mapping Mission (HCMM). (26k jpg)
NASA Image

The smooth surface of the dune field appears dark, while the rough texture and orientation of the mountains give them a brighter appearance. The light and dark patterns in the Sea are due to variations in the water surface caused by the blowing wind. (45k jpg)
NASA Image

A color composite image showing the Washington, DC area. (66k jpg)
Images processed at the Center for Earth and Planetary Studies

Numerical values indicate the brightness levels of individual pixels in digital images. (76k jpg)
Images processed at the Center for Earth and Planetary Studies

Different wavelengths are assigned to different primary colors and then combined to produce a false-color image. (22k jpg)
Images processed at the Center for Earth and Planetary Studies

The San Andreas Fault extends from the upper left to the lower right on this radar image from the Seasat satellite which operated in 1978. (71k jpg)
NASA Image

Seasat radar view of the folded Appalachian Mountains. (46k jpg)
NASA Image

Landsat image of the Western Desert of Egypt showing the location of the SIR-A overlay. (20k jpg)
Courtesy of G. Schaber, US Geological Survey

Shuttle Imaging Radar Experiment (SIR-A) data overlayed onto a Landsat image of the Western Desert of Egypt shows ancient dried up river channels. (27k jpg)
Courtesy of G. Schaber, US Geological Survey

3-D view of the Alcedo Volcano on Isabela, one of the Galápagos Islands, created by overlaying topographic data with SIR-C/X-SAR radar imagery. (42k jpg)
Courtesy of Jet Propulsion Laboratory

The Bear Peninsula (left) and the ridged terminus of the Thwaites Glacier (lower right) jut out into Antarctica's Pine Island Bay in this image collected by the RADARSAT spacecraft. (51k jpg)
RADARSAT data © Canadian Space Agency/Agence spatiale canadienne, 1997.

In 1978 Seasat operated for 98 days and acquired enough data to produce imagery of 100 million square kilometers of the Earth's surface. (60k jpg)
1:20 Scale model courtesy of Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Surface irregularities caused by ridges and shoals off Nantucket Island show up distinctly on the Seasat image. The surface patterns closely match the underwater configuration. (14k jpg)
NASA Image

Sediment deposits at the mouth of the Kuskokwim River in southwest Alaska are clearly delineated on the Seasat image. The bright areas are channels formed by the river flow. (23k jpg)
NASA Photograph

Mosaic of Seasat radar strips around Grand Bahama Island. Vortices, perhaps caused by the flow of water along the island's west coast, are apparent to the south. (20k jpg)
NASA Imagery

Seasat also carried an instrument to measure the topography of the ocean surface. The variations in the ocean surface are reflections of the trenches and ridges on the ocean floor. (44k jpg)
Courtesy of Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Warm water shows up in light tones and cold water in dark tones on this thermal image from the Heat Capacity Mapping Mission. The warm water along the bottom of the picture is the Gulf Stream. Note the two warm water eddies along the edge of the Stream. (25k jpg)
NASA Image

Another view of the Gulf Stream from the Heat Capacity Mapping Mission. The warm Stream shown in white contrasts sharply with the cooler surrounding waters. (21k jpg)
NASA Image

Sea Surface temperature image from data gathered by the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) on the NOAA-12 satellite. (51k jpg)
Courtesy of Ocean Remote Sensing Group, Johns Hopkins University, Applied Physics Laboratory

Space Shuttle astronauts photographed sand waves on the ocean floor around the Bahamas. (38k jpg)
NASA Photograph

Sediment patterns are clearly evident in this Skylab view of Lake Michigan. (37k jpg)
NASA Photograph

The Sun highlights wave structures in this Skylab scene of Madiera Island in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa. (28k jpg)
NASA Photograph

Skylab 3 view of the mouth of the Colorado River emptying into the Gulf of California. (15k jpg)
NASA Photograph

Internal (subsurface) waves were photographed by the Skylab 4 crew south of Kangaroo Island off the coast of Australia. Waves as long as 10 kilometers (about 6 miles) were observed. (10k jpg)
NASA Photograph

Space Shuttle handheld view of the Acklins and Crooked Islands in the Bahamas. (29k jpg)
NASA Photograph

SeaWiFS image of the Black Sea. The Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) is carried on board the SeaStar spacecraft. (59k jpg)
Image provided by the SeaWiFS Project, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center and Orbimage