Three Months of Oil: Satellites View Gulf Oil Spill
On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, triggering the largest oil spill in U.S. history. The MODIS instrument, on board NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites, continues to capture imagery of the region. This short video time series shows a satellite perspective of the spill through July 12, 2010, and updates the earlier NASA video time series released on May 27, 2010. The oil slick appears a dull grayish-beige in the images and changes due in part to to changing weather, ocean currents, and the use of oil dispersing chemicals. The oil slick only appears clearly in MODIS imagery when the sun is a a particular angle in relation to the satellite's position as it orbits over the Gulf. In areas where sunlight reflects off the ocean's surface toward the satellite, oil-slicked water usually looks brighter than cleaner ocean water in the region.Images in the video time series were selected that show the spill most clearly. The full image archive is available on the MODIS Rapid Response web site.
Satellite View of the Gulf of Mexico's Oil Spill
Terra Satellite view of the Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico. April 12, 2010
Terra Satellite view of the Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico. April 21, 2010
Terra Satellite view of the Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico. April 29, 2010
Aqua Satellite view of the Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico. May 9, 2010
Terra Satellite view of the Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico. May 12, 2010
Terra Satellite view of the Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico. May 17, 2010
Terra Satellite view of the Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico. May 24, 2010
Terra Satellite view of the Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico. May 31, 2010
Aqua Satellite view of the Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico. June 10, 2010
Terra Satellite view of the Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico. June 18, 2010
Terra Satellite view of the Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico. June 25, 2010
Terra Satellite view of the Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico. July 4, 2010
Aqua Satellite view of the Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico. July 12, 2010
Aqua Satellite view of the Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico. July 14, 2010
Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
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Video editor
- Stuart A. Snodgrass (HTSI)
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Producers
- Jennifer A. Shoemaker (UMBC)
- Stuart A. Snodgrass (HTSI)
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Project support
- Pankaj K. Jaiswal (SAIC)
Release date
This page was originally published on Monday, July 19, 2010.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:54 PM EDT.
Missions
This visualization is related to the following missions:Tapes
This visualization originally appeared on the following tapes:-
Gulf Oil Spill
(ID: 2010080)
Wednesday, May 26, 2010 at 4:00AM
Produced by - Terry Cole (NASA)
Datasets used in this visualization
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True Color (Band Combination 1, 4, 3) [Terra and Aqua: MODIS]
ID: 649
Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details, nor the data sets themselves on our site.