Earth from Space - Image Description

STS61A-34-0023 Adirondack Mountains, Lake Placid, New York November 1985
The peculiar ladder-shaped Lake Placid (just above the center of the image) can be seen in this near-nadir view. Numerous forested hills, valleys, and lakes of the northeastern Adirondack Mountains are also visible. The shape of Lake Placid, as seen on the image, was formed many thousands of years ago by cris-crossing fracture zones, stream erosion, and glaciation. The lake is nearly 5 miles (8 km) long. The uplifted Adirondacks are new mountains, geologically speaking, carved from very old rocks nearly three billion years old. Eroded over the many years and sculptured by glaciers, the Adirondacks continue to rise at about 3 millimeters a year. The highland areas around Lake Placid, site of the 1932 and 1980 Winter Olympic Games, offers spectacular scenery and attracts many thousands of visitors every year.

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