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A Note on the Images A Selkirk Island, Chile story

Coasts  / 
Water
  1. Selkirk Island, Chile
  2. A Note on the Images
Description

The Landsat images that are shown on Earthshots are combinations of three different wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum. Typically, the images show a combination of visible and infrared light; therefore, they are false color images. When these wavelengths, or bands, are shown individually instead of combined, different details sometimes emerge.

In the case of this Selkirk Karman vortex street scene, Landsat 7’s band 5 hints at a feature not visible in the image featured in the first section, which is a combination of bands 5, 4, and 3. Do you see it? Band 7 shows it even better. Northeast of the island, just east of the vortices, there is a bright spot and a bright plume trailing from it to the northeast. This may be a westbound ship, the effect of the ship’s exhaust shown in the clouds.

 

View Related Imagery & Stories

Location

Sept. 15, 1999, Landsat 7 (path/row 6/83) — Selkirk Island vortex street, Landsat band 5

Sept. 15, 1999, Landsat 7 (path/row 6/83) — Selkirk Island vortex street, Landsat band 5

Sept. 15, 1999, Landsat 7 (path/row 6/83) — Selkirk Island vortex street, Landsat band 7

Sept. 15, 1999, Landsat 7 (path/row 6/83) — Selkirk Island vortex street, Landsat band 7

Sept. 15, 1999, Landsat 7 (path/row 6/83) — Selkirk Island vortex street, Landsat band 5
Sept. 15, 1999, Landsat 7 (path/row 6/83) — Selkirk Island vortex street, Landsat band 7

Selkirk Island, Chile Additional Imagery & Stories

More Selkirk Cloudscapes
More Selkirk Cloudscapes

Since its launch in 1999, Landsat 7 has not again seen such nice vortices over Selkirk Island. A single vortex formed on March 25, 2000, from a simila...

Read More
Other Vortices
Other Vortices

Selkirk Island is not the only place where Landsat has seen vortex streets. Other places where this phenomenon is common are nearby Robinson Crusoe Is...

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Rare Clear Views
Rare Clear Views

April 19, 2009, could have been a rare clear view of the island, but some of the data are missing because of Landsat 7’s Scan Line Corrector (SLC) mal...

Read More
Reflectivity of Water
Reflectivity of Water

Have you noticed that in these images, clouds look white but the ocean looks black? Both are made of the same substance, water—why would they appear a...

Read More
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