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.
Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
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Video editor
- Stuart A. Snodgrass (KBRwyle)
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Producers
- Jennifer A. Shoemaker (UMBC)
- Stuart A. Snodgrass (KBRwyle)
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Project support
- Pankaj K. Jaiswal (SAIC)
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
Datasets used in this visualization
Terra and Aqua True Color (A.K.A. Band Combination 1, 4, 3) (Collected with the MODIS sensor)
NASA
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.
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