| ISS014 Earth Sciences and Image Analysis Photographic Highlights |
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| ISS014-E-7578 |
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| Nardo Ring, Italy: The Narḍ Ring is a striking visual feature
from space, and astronauts have photographed it several times. The
Ring is a race car test track; it is 12.5 kilometers long and steeply
banked to reduce the amount of active steering needed by drivers.
Although it is a perfect circle, it appears oval in this photograph.
This distortion is because the astronaut’s viewing angle was 35
degrees, looking back along the orbit track to the southwest from the
International Space Station’s window. The Narḍ Ring lies in a remote area on the heel of Italy’s “boot,” 50 kilometers east of the naval port of Taranto. The small coastal town of Villaggio Boncore—visible as a light grey area of linear streets at the bottom center of the image—lies just to the south, but the Ring is named after the bigger urban center of Narḍ, 22 kilometers to the southeast (not shown). The Ring encompasses a number of active (green) and fallow (brown to dark brown) agricultural fields. In this zone of intensive agriculture, farmers gain access to their fields through the Ring via a series of underpasses. Winding features within the southern section of the Ring appear to be smaller, unused race tracks. |
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This service is provided by the International Space Station program and the JSC Astromaterials Research & Exploration Science Directorate. Recommended Citation: Image Science and Analysis Laboratory, NASA-Johnson Space Center. "The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth." . |
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