STS098-382-14
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City Lights of Northeastern Seaboard of the U.S.: A nighttime
scene of the northeastern seaboard of the United States shows the
bright lights of several major cities that span a distance from
Connecticut (left middle) to states south of Virginia (right middle).
City lights from both very large urban areas as well as smaller
towns and cities are visible. The largest cluster of brightness
emanates from the greater New York metropolitan area (left center)
and then a series of bright spots progress southwesterly to include
Philadelphia (PA), Baltimore (MD), Washington (D.C.), Richmond (VA),
and finally ending with the Newport News/ Norfolk (VA) city lights
(top center). Many of the major ground transportation arteries can be
seen as radial, linear features that radiate outward from the central
business districts of the cities. Even the lights of smaller cities
such as Allentown, Reading, Lancaster, York, and Harrisburg (PA) are
visible (bottom center).
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STS098-716-57
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Baltimore Area, Maryland, USA: Baltimore, Maryland can be
identified in this northwest-looking view of the western shore of
Chesapeake Bay. Numerous drowned river valleys provide excellent
natural harbors along the periphery of the bay. Baltimore’s harbor
has been developed along one of these drowned valleys, the Patapsco
River. With a population of over 2.5 million people, the greater
Baltimore urban area is part of the northeastern U.S. Megalopolis
that extends from the Boston (MA) area to Richmond (VA). Specific
features that can be seen in the image include a short segment of
Interstate Highway 95 that connects southwest Baltimore with
northeast Washington, D.C.; the intersecting runways of
Baltimore-Washington International Airport south of downtown
Baltimore; Francis Scott Key Bridge that skirts around the southeast
side of Baltimore; the Chesapeake Bay Bridge that spans the bay and
connects the Baltimore area with the eastern shore of Maryland; and
the central business district of Baltimore where the two arms of the
inner harbor terminate. The darker-looking vegetation cover is mixed
hardwood forests (notice that many wooded areas are located along
streambeds and floodplains of small river valleys), while
lighter-looking land parcels in the rural countryside is used for
crops or pasturelands.
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STS098-712-29
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Internal Waves, Strait of Gibraltar: This photograph was taken
by the STS-98 astronaut crew as they passed over the western
Mediterranean region near sunset on February 19, 2001. Two packets of
tidally-generated internal waves are highlighted by sun glinting off
the surface waters in the Strait of Gibraltar. The older packet
(labeled) contains at least 14 waves, which can be counted like tree
rings. A younger group is forming near the middle of the strait
(marked by the carat south of Gibraltar). The waves are generated as
a diurnal tidal pulse flows over the shallow Camarinal Sill at
Gibraltar. The waves flow eastward, refract around coastal features;
can be traced for as much as 150 km, and sometimes create
interference patterns with refracted waves. Surface water
patterns can be observed by astronauts in low-Earth orbit in the
sunglint: the sun reflects and is differentially scattered off the
water surface. The strength of the reflection is determined by the
surfactant layer, which can dampen capillary waves and change the
surface texture of the water. Different types of near-surface water
structures act to locally concentrate or thin the surfactant layer,
which, depending on the instantaneous geometry of the Sun, the Earth
and the spacecraft, show up as brighter and darker regions on the
water. Although sunglint effectively masks true water color, the
sunglint patterns reveal surface water dynamics like eddies, current
boundaries and even deeper water features like internal waves that
are otherwise invisible. Sunglint also effectively traces land-water
boundaries. The bright regions in Spain and Morocco are reservoirs,
rivers and lakes.
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STS098-712-91
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Panama Canal Zone, Panama, February 2001: Near the center of
this north-looking image, the forested area of the Panama Canal Zone
can be seen. The Panama Canal Zone extends 5 miles (8 km) on either
side of the Panama Canal. The forested zone acts as a buffer for the
canal to help prevent erosion and sediment from clogging the canal.
Most of the countryside on both sides of the Canal Zone has been
deforested to make way for large ranches and the raising of cattle.
Though some sedimentation is occurring, dredging of the canal keeps
the passage clear. The Panama Canal is 40 miles (64 km) long
including dredged approach channels at each end. With the Caribbean
Sea covering the upper portion of the image and the Pacific Ocean
covering the lower portion of the image, the canal traverses the
Isthmus of Panama in a northwest to southeast direction. Gatun Lake,
one of the largest artificial lakes in the world, is visible at the
north end of the Canal Zone. Panama City (light-colored grayish area)
is discernible to the right of the canal at its southern entrance
from the Pacific Ocean. In 1996, 15,000 ships traveled through the
canal, an average of 42 ships per day. Passage through the canal
requires 7 to 8 hours.
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STS098-713-11
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Toe of Italy, Sicily and general smog in the Mediterranean
basin: In this highly oblique view, the toe of Italy lies across
the middle of the view, with the triangular island of Sicily (top)
beyond the narrow Strait of Messina. Recognition of the shapes is
made difficult by foreshortening and an atmosphere so heavily laden
with pollutants and some cloud that the outlines of the landmasses
are obscured in places. Despite this, the volcanic peak of Mt Etna
can be identified by its shadowed flanks rising above the cloud and
smog. Cloud masses are the whiter, puffy regions over the toe and
around Etna. The smoke plume from a fire--probably a forest
fire--stretches across the foreground under the influence of
northerly winds (right to left in this view). Particulates in the
atmosphere shown here are thus a combination of industrial
pollutants, fire smoke, and possibly volcanic emissions. The
bright sunglint point lies between the toe of Italy and the near cape
of Sicily in this late afternoon, west-looking view. The coppery
color to the glint reflects of the sea surface to give a slight
orange tinge to atmosphere throughout the view. The cause is the
pollutants in the air that scatter the red-orange wavelengths and are
a sure indication to astronauts of smoke or smog in the air.
Astronaut photographs have shown repeatedly over the last 15 years
that the main source of the Mediterranean air pollution is the
heavily industrialized Po River valley of northern Italy. This
relatively small area is by far the most regular supplier of
pollutants in the Mediterranean basin. Typically, smog banks can be
seen drifting slowly south down the Adriatic Sea until they splay
west or east into the main basin. During the flight of STS98,
pollution stretched from the source in the Po all the way to northern
Spain where it was still so thick that it obscured the Ebro River
valley from the astronauts' view.
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STS098-714A-20
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Southern California: Snow blanketing the higher elevations in
the Los Padres National Forest (center of the image) and Angeles
National Forest (right middle) helps to accentuate and separate three
major landform regions in southern California. The northern Los
Angeles Basin that includes the San Fernando Valley and the Santa
Monica Mountains is visible in the lower right quadrant of the image.
The western end of the Mojave Desert (upper right) shows the two
distinctive mountain boundaries along the southwest and northwest
edge of the desert. The San Andreas Fault and the Garlock Fault
converge (snow covered in this scene) at the western end of the
desert. The intensively irrigated and cultivated southern end of the
San Joaquin Valley that includes Bakersfield is visible (upper left)
north of the snow-covered, northeast-southwest trending Tehachapi
Mountains. The island off of the California coast (bottom left) is
Santa Cruz Island.
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STS098-714A-49
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Grand Canyon Area, Arizona, February 2001: Located on the
Colorado Plateau (center of the image), the 217-mile (349 km) long
Grand Canyon can be seen in this south-looking view. From 4 to 18
miles (6 to 29 km) wide the Grand Canyon is over one mile (1.6 km)
deep, the deepest canyon in North America. Geologically young at 6
to 8 million years old, the Grand Canyon is a result of erosion,
primarily by waters of the Colorado River. Lake Powell on the
Arizona/Utah border is visible at slightly below the center left of
the image. The snow-covered San Francisco Mountains can be seen to
the south of the canyon slightly to the left of the center of the
image. At the bottom of the image a portion of the snow-covered
Vermillion Cliffs of southern Utah are visible.
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STS098-716-34
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Tyrolean Alps and Inn River Valley, Austria: The valley of the
Inn River transects this westward view of the Tyrolean Alps, Austria.
Rietzer Grieskogel (2887 m) is the peak at the center of the frame;
the confluence of the Sill River in the Wipptal (tal = valley) and
the Inn, site of the city of Innsbruck, is just east of the mountain.
The Ziller River flows in next large valley to the east. The majestic
Alpine chain stretches from Iberia to the Caucasus and was created by
the collision of the African and Eurasian tectonic plates beginning
about 145 million years ago.
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STS098-819-38
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Houston, Texas: The focus of this image is the Texas coastal
plain that includes the landscape south and east of downtown Houston.
Major ground transportation routes radiate in all directions from
the highly reflective Central Business District (left middle edge of
image). The petrochemical corridor that extends eastward from the
downtown area along the Houston Ship Channel and the petrochemical
facilities in Texas City (southeast of downtown Houston) are two of
the more prominent industrial areas that are recognizable on this
image. In addition to the manmade features several natural features
are discernable. Turbid Galveston Bay has a dredged ship channel
that provides access to the Port of Houston. Major water bodies
including Lake Houston, a major source for Houston’s drinking water
(near upper left corner of the image), and Lake Anahuac (near the
upper right corner) that are also an integral component of the
surface hydrology of east Houston. The channel entrance into
Galveston Bay is visible along the eastern end of Galveston Island
and the western end of the Bolivar Peninsula (right middle edge of
image).
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STS098-E-5327
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John F. Kennedy Space Center, Florida: Located on Merritt
Island along the east coast of Florida, two of NASA’s Space Shuttle
launch sites, roughly oval-shaped area, are visible (slightly above
and left of center). The launch pads are connected by specially
prepared roadway to the Vehicle Assembly Building (highly reflective
area slightly above and right of center). The Vehicle Assembly
Building also has a roadway that connects with a narrow, linear,
highly reflective feature north of the VAB site, the Shuttle Landing
Facility. This runway serves as the primary landing site for all
returning Space Shuttle missions. Several roads (light-colored
linear features) can be identified as they cross the flat, generally
swampy and vegetated terrain in and around the Kennedy Space Center.
Besides the Atlantic Ocean (left) two other recognizable water
features can be discriminated: the southern end of Mosquito Lagoon
(center lower left) and a small segment of the Banana River (lower
right corner of the image). The large light-colored area near the
upper right corner of the image is the Kennedy Space Center
Industrial Area.
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