Earth from Space - Image Description

STS040-609-039 San Joaquin Valley and Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, U.S.A. June 1991
Parts of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the San Joaquin Valley are featured in this synoptic, southeast-looking, oblique photograph of central California. Discernible are the basin range east of the snowcapped Sierra Nevada Mountains; the steep east slopes and the more gradual but deeply dissected west slopes; and the broad, fertile, irrigated San Joaquin Valley with its diversity of crops. Paralleling the Sierra Nevada Mountains on the western side of the San Joaquin Valley is the much lower Coast Range with crests averaging between 2000 and 4000 feet (600 and 800 meters). Low stratus clouds overhang the lower valleys along the coastline.

This service is provided by the International Space Station program and the JSC Earth Science & Remote Sensing Unit, ARES Division, Exploration Integration Science Directorate.