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Simushir Island, Kuril Archipelago
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Published September 17, 2007
Simushir is a deserted, 5-mile-wide volcanic island in the Kuril Islands chain, half way between northern Japan and the Kamchatka Peninsula of Russia. Four volcanoes—Milne, Prevo, Urataman, and Zavaritski—have built cones tall enough to rise above the green forest. The remaining remnant of Zavaritski Volcano is a caldera, formed when a volcano collapses into its emptied magma chamber.
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Nardo Ring, Italy
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Published September 10, 2007
The Nardò 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.
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Shiveluch Volcano, Russia’s Far East
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Published September 3, 2007
Shiveluch is one of the biggest and most active of a line of volcanoes that follow the spine of the Kamchatka Peninsula in easternmost Russia. The volcanoes and peninsula are part of the tectonically active “Ring of Fire,” a zone of active volcanoes and frequent earthquakes that nearly surrounds the Pacific Ocean.
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Ceuta, Northern Africa
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Published August 27, 2007
he southern tip of Spain and the northern tip of Africa come close to touching at the Strait of Gibraltar. The small Spanish enclave Ceuta occupies a narrow isthmus of land on the African side of the Strait of Gibraltar; the rest of the surrounding territory is Morocco.
Smoke Plumes over Idaho and Montana
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Published August 20, 2007
On August 13, 2007, while docked to the International Space Station (ISS), the crew members of Shuttle Mission STS-118 and ISS Expedition 15 reported seeing the smoke plumes from wide-spread fires across Idaho and Montana. The crew photographed and downlinked images of isolated plumes and regional views of the smoke from different perspectives.
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Bechar Basin, Algeria
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Published August 6, 2007
The Béchar Basin of northwest Algeria formed as layers of sedimentary rocks from the Paleozoic Era (250-540 million years ago) folded and cracked during collisions of Africa and Europe during the Tertiary Period (2-65 million years ago). In this photograph of part of the basin captured by astronauts, dark brown to tan folded ridges of these Paleozoic sedimentary layers extend across the image from top to bottom.
Brooklyn, New York Waterfront
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Published July 30, 2007
his astronaut photograph captures the dense urban fabric of Brooklyn, New York City’s largest borough (population of 2.6 million), characterized by the regular pattern of highly reflective building rooftops (white). Two main arteries from Manhattan into Brooklyn—the famous Brooklyn Bridge and neighboring Manhattan Bridge—cross the East River along the left (north) side of the image.
Upheaval Dome, Utah
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Published July 23, 2007
Upheaval Dome is a striking geologic structure in the Canyonlands National Park of southern Utah. The alternating rock layers make a nearly circular, 5.5-kilometer- (3.4-mile-) diameter “bull’s-eye.” This photograph of Upheaval Dome was taken by an astronaut onboard the International Space Station. The oblique viewing angle—in other words, not looking straight down—provides a sense of the topography within and around the structure. The dome appears more like an ellipse than a circle due to the oblique viewing perspective.
Patuxent River Naval Air Station, Maryland
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Published July 2, 2007
Maryland’s Patuxent River Naval Air Station is located on a small peninsula, bordered by the Patuxent River to the north-northeast and Chesapeake Bay to the east and southeast. International Space Station crews frequently use the Patuxent River Naval Air Station as a geographic reference point and photographic training target. This astronaut photograph illustrates why—the distinctive pattern of the airfield runways and the station’s location in Chesapeake Bay make it easy to spot from orbit.