Gallery: Earth as Art: 5 Most Popular Landsat Satellite Images
01baltic-sea
More From Landsat:[](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/07/landsat-40-significant-images/?rm) [Landsat’s Most Historically Significant Images](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/07/landsat-40-significant-images/?rm)[](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/11/earth-as-art-gallery/?rm) [Earth as Art: Stunning Images From Space](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/11/earth-as-art-gallery/?rm)Images of Earth from space give us a different, often enlightening and even inspirational view of our planet. The USGS and NASA have taken some of the more interesting images from the Landsat satellites and added some false color, digitally produced by sensors on the satellites, to accentuate different features and create some truly beautiful works of art. The first Landsat satellite was launched on July 23, 1972. To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Landsat mission, the public was given the difficult task of choosing the best of the more than 120 images in the [Earth as Art](http://eros.usgs.gov/imagegallery/) collection. The top five selections, based on more than 14,000 votes, are featured here in descending order (above: first place). Your challenge is to select just one of these incredible images for your computer desktop. __Above:__ Phytoplankton in the Baltic Sea ------------------------------- In the style of Van Gogh's painting "Starry Night," massive congregations of greenish phytoplankton swirl in the dark water around Gotland, a Swedish island in the Baltic Sea. Population explosions, or blooms, of phytoplankton, like the one shown here, occur when deep currents bring nutrients up to sunlit surface waters, fueling the growth and reproduction of these tiny plants. This image was acquired by Landsat 7 on July 13, 2005. *Image and caption: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/USGS.*
02yukon-delta-2
Yukon Delta ----------- Countless lakes, sloughs, and ponds are scattered throughout this scene of the Yukon Delta in southwest Alaska. One of the largest river deltas in the world, and protected as part of the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge, the river's sinuous waterways seem like blood vessels branching out to enclose an organ. This image was acquired by Landsat 7 Sept. 22, 2002. *Image and caption: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/USGS.*
03mississippi-river
Meandering Mississippi River ---------------------------- Small, blocky shapes of towns, fields, and pastures surround the graceful swirls and whorls of the Mississippi River, the largest river system in North America. Countless oxbow lakes and cutoffs accompany the meandering river south of Memphis, Tennessee, on the border between Arkansas and Mississippi. This image was acquired by Landsat 7 on May 28, 2003. *Image and caption: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/USGS.*
04algerian-desert
Algerian Abstract ----------------- What look like pale yellow paint streaks slashing through a mosaic of mottled colors are ridges of wind-blown sand that make up Erg Iguidi, an area of ever-shifting sand dunes extending from Algeria into Mauritania in northwestern Africa. Erg Iguidi is one of several Saharan ergs, or sand seas, where individual dunes often surpass 500 meters (nearly a third of a mile) in both width and height. This image was acquired by Landsat 5 on April 8, 1985. *Image and caption: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/USGS.*
05lake-eyre
Lake Eyre --------- The scary face in this image is actually inundated patches of shallow Lake Eyre (pronounced "air") in the desert country of northern South Australia. An ephemeral feature of this flat, parched landscape, Lake Eyre is Australia's largest lake when it's full. However in the last 150 years, it has filled completely only three times. This image was acquired by Landsat 5 on Aug. 5, 2006. *Image and caption: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/USGS.*
