Fall Colors From Space

October 22, 2008

Used to be that you had to live in or travel to a place with deciduous trees to enjoy fall colors. But this is the Space Age. Now you can watch the trees blush with autumn from orbit.

This image of the Northeastern US coloring up is from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite. The date is October 12, 2008 (see the gorgeous, gigantic 7 MB version here). Notice how the orange leaves are at higher elevations, in the Appalachian Mountains and further north. These places get colder sooner, so the leaves turn earlier. Orange touches trees in the north and at higher elevations, where temperatures are cooler. Lower elevations are still green. The gray areas are urban areas. New York is particularly easy to spot.

This is just another one of those images that reminds us that NASA also explores Earth -- a whole lot.

 

Comments

[Christine]

beautiful! thanks for posting :)

[Clara]

That is really neat, I live right in the middle of the largest patch of orange.