Aleutian Islands - Von Karman Vortices
As air flows over and around objects in its path, spiraling eddies, known as Von Karman vortices, may form. The vortices in this image were created when prevailing winds sweeping east across the northern Pacific Ocean encountered Alaska's Aleutian Islands. [Image and caption courtesy of USGS National Center for EROS and NASA Landsat Project Science Office] Image taken 7/4/2002 by Landsat 7.

Bogda Mountains
The Turpan Depression, nestled at the foot of China’s Bogda Mountains, is a strange mix of salt lakes and sand dunes, and is one of the few places in the world that lies below sea level.
[Image and caption courtesy of USGS National Center for EROS and NASA Landsat Project Science Office] Image taken 9/1/1999.

Dasht-e Kevir
The Dasht-e Kevir, or Great Salt Desert, is the largest desert in Iran.
It is primarily uninhabited wasteland, composed of mud and salt marshes covered with crusts of salt that protect the meager moisture from completely evaporating. [Landsat 7 image selection, processing, and caption courtesy of USGS EDC] Image acquired 10/24/2001.

Death Valley National Park
At 282 feet below sea level, Death Valley, California, is one of the hottest, driest places on the planet. On average, the area sees only about 1.96 inches of rain a year, and summer temperatures routinely soar above 100 degrees Fahrenheit. [Image and caption courtesy of USGS National Center for EROS and NASA Landsat Project Science Office / Image credit: NASA] Image taken 6/11/2000 and 7/20/2000.

Parana River Delta
The Parana River delta is a huge forested marshland about 20 miles northeast of Buenos Aires, Argentina, one of the world's greatest bird-watching destinations. This image highlights the striking contrast between dense forest and wetland marshes, and the deep blue ribbon of the Parana River. [Image and caption courtesy of USGS National Center for EROS and NASA Landsat Project Science Office]
Image taken 5/26/2000.

Richat Structure
The so-called Richat Structure is a geological formation in the
Maur Adrar Desert in the African country of Mauritania. Although it resembles an impact crater, the Richat Structure formed when a volcanic dome hardened and gradually eroded, exposing the onion-like layers of rock. [Image and caption courtesy of USGS National Center for EROS and NASA Landsat Project Science Office / Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory] Image taken 1/11/2001.

Cyclones in Tandem
A cyclone is a low-pressure area of winds that spiral inwards. Although tropical storms most often come to mind, these spiraling storms can also form at mid- and high latitudes. Two such cyclones formed in tandem in November 2006. MODIS, flying onboard NASA's Terra satellite, took this picture that shows the cyclones south of Iceland. [Image and caption credit: NASA] Image taken 11/20/2006.

Crab Nebula
The Crab Nebula is a six-light-year-wide expanding remnant of a star’s supernova explosion. Japanese and Chinese astronomers recorded their observations of this violent event nearly 1,000 years ago, in 1054. This composite image was assembled from 24 individual exposures taken with the NASA Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 in October 1999, January 2000, and December 2000. [Image and caption credit: NASA, ESA, J. Hester and A. Loll (Arizona State University)]

Blue Marble
Inspired by Apollo-era pictures of our planet as seen from space, NASA assembles imagery from a variety of Earth-observing satellites into a computer-generated composite. The agency calls this continuing project “Blue Marble Next Generation.” [Image and caption courtesy of NASA Earth Observatory] Composite images taken from 1994 to 2004.

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