Interesting Photo of the Day: Trailing the Canaries

Interesting Photos

Every year, NASA hosts Tournament: Earth, where voters choose one remarkable image taken from space. This year, the winning image was snapped by the Terra satellite’s unfathomably powerful Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer. It depicts the Canary Islands confusingly looking like they’re swimming north:

A shot of the Canary Islands won the same tournament last year. (Via NASA and PetaPixel. Click for larger image.)

What the image, taken June 15, 2013, actually shows is the way the wind moves the water prominently southwest in the area. The Canary Islands actually block the wind movement, which changes the tint of the otherwise silvery ocean surface. Pretty impressive detail considering its 713-kilometer orbit height.