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SearchDaily Overview
One regular dose of Earth from above
New Overviews are posted regularly on Instagram — follow @dailyoverview to see them as soon as they go up.
Río Cauto
20.584069°,-77.153502° - NASA
The Río Cauto forms a colorful delta as it empties and drops sediment into the Gulf of Guacanayabo in southeastern Cuba. Flowing for about 230 miles (370 km), the Cauto is Cuba’s longest river and one of only two navigable rivers in the country. Its delta is an internationally recognized wetland and is home to several species of mangrove, as well as the endangered Cuban parakeet and Cuban tree duck.
Malé, Maldives
4.175278°,73.508889° - Vantor
Malé is the capital and most populous city in the Republic of Maldives, a nation of islands in South Asia. With a population of about 133,000 in an area of 2.24 square miles (5.8 square km), it is the fifth most densely populated island on Earth. Since it has no surrounding countryside, all of Malé’s utilities are located in the city proper and sewage is pumped unprocessed into the sea.
Charles de Gaulle International Airport (CDG)
49.014277°,2.541856° - Vantor
Terminal 1 at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, France. In the month of June, the entire airport accommodated 625,900 passengers, which is only 9% of pre-COVID passenger traffic. This terminal was designed in the shape of an octopus and its gates are housed in seven satellite buildings connected via underground walkways. We just posted our newest story about air travel during Covid-19 on our site.
Edwards Compass Rose
34.954060°,-117.873340° - Vantor
A massive compass rose is painted onto dry lake bed at Edwards Air Force Base in Kern County, Southern California. With a diameter of more than 4,000 feet (1,220 meters), the compass is almost perfectly aligned with magnetic north and is used by aircraft to test navigation equipment. At the top of this Overview is the Neil A. Armstrong Flight Research Center, NASA’s premier site for aeronautical research.
Bering Glacier
60.241353°,-143.555744° - Planet
This Overview shows the terminus of Bering Glacier at Vitus Lake in southeastern Alaska. Combined with the Bagley Icefield, where the snow that feeds the glacier accumulates, Bering is the largest glacier in North America. Both the glacier and Vitus Lake are named after Vitus Bering, an 18th century cartographer and explorer who led expeditions along the Arctic coast of Siberia and North America.
Lido Circle, Discovery Bay
37.912730°,-121.603287° - Nearmap
This Overview shows the Lido Circle cul-de-sac in Discovery Bay, California. Located about 60 miles (97 km) from San Francisco, Discovery Bay sits primarily on a network of man-made embankments surrounded by fresh water as well as some development on former agricultural land. The entire community is home to roughly 13,000 residents.
Wakashio Oil Spill
-20.440833°,57.749872° - Vantor
On July 25th, the MV Wakashio oil carrier ran aground offshore of Point d’Esny in Mauritius and has been leaking fuel ever since. As of Monday (August 10), an estimated 1,000 metric tons of oil had spilled from the ship from the ship’s estimated cargo of 4,000 tons of fuel. Mauritians have rushed to make absorbent barriers to contain the spill and protect local flora and fauna, including world-renowned coral reefs.
Jones Sound
76.257617°,-83.830201° - NASA
Large chunks of ice break loose into Jones Sound, a waterway between Ellesmere and Devon Islands in Qikiqtaaluk, Nunavut, Canada. Situated on the northern point of North America, this region experiences an extreme temperature range, exceeding 50°F (10°C) in summer and dropping as low as -58°F (-50°C) in the winter. In fact, its climate is more similar to Mars than almost any other place on Earth, making it an attractive area for scientists interested in terraforming the “Red Planet”.
Jurua River
-2.635833°,-65.756111° - Planet
The Juruá River is a southern tributary of the Amazon River, flowing approximately 1,500 miles (2,400 km) through Brazil and Peru. For most of its length, the river winds through the Amazon basin and is generally curvy and sluggish.
Bonneville Salt Flats
40.799722°,-113.800000° - Matt Newey
Kayakers and paddle boarders float down a channel in the Bonneville Salt Flats of northwestern Utah, USA. Salt flats (also known as salt pans) are formed when a body of water evaporates, leaving behind a surface of salt and other minerals. This aqueduct transports saltwater to nearby evaporation ponds where potash is extracted and used as fertilizer. Covering about 40 square miles (100 square km), Bonneville is the largest of many salt pans located west of the Great Salt Lake.
Bolinas
37.909444°,-122.686389° - Vantor
Waves of the Pacific Ocean roll into Bolinas, California, roughly 20 miles (32 km) northwest of San Francisco. Known for its reclusive residents, the town is only accessible via unmarked roads and, in 1989, its inhabitants voted to discontinue road signs directing travelers into town. Bolinas is home to about 1,620 people.
Henderson Island
-24.335167°,-128.310444° - Vantor
Henderson Island is a 14.4-square-mile, uninhabited landmass in the South Pacific Ocean. Studies have shown that this area has a higher density of plastic wash up on its shores than any other place on the globe. It is estimated that the island’s shores contain 37.7 million items of debris, weighing a total of 17.6 tons.
Northumberlandia
55.088389°,-1.628083° - Vantor
Northumberlandia, or “Lady of the North,” is a massive land sculpture in the shape of a reclining female figure near the town of Cramlington in northern England. Completed in 2012, the sculpture is made of 1.5 million metric tonnes of earth removed from the neighboring Shotton Surface Mine. It is 112 feet (34 m) high and 1,300 feet (400 m) long.
Stonehenge
51.178889°,-1.826111° - Lewis Slade
Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument located in Wiltshire, England, constructed sometime between 3000 and 2000 BC. This week, researchers announced they had finally traced the origin of its giant sarsen stones to the West Woods, a forested area about 15 miles (24 km) away in the town of Marlborough. These massive stones, which make up Stonehenge’s central horseshoe, stand up to 23 feet (7 m) tall and weigh up to 30 tonnes.
Barbours Cut Container Terminal
29.678832°,-95.003808° - Nearmap
The Barbours Cut Container Terminal in Morgan’s Point, Texas, is one of the busiest facilities operated by the Port of Houston. Located on Galveston Bay with easy access to the Gulf of Mexico, the terminal has six berths and 6,000 feet (1,828 m) of continuous dock space. In 2019, Barbours Cut and Bayport — the Port of Houston’s second container terminal — handled a collective 2,987,281 twenty-foot equivalent units of cargo.
Shadegan Lagoon
30.456750°,48.929444° - Vantor
Dendritic drainage systems are seen around the Shadegan Lagoon by Musa Bay in Iran. The word ‘dendritic’ refers to the pools’ resemblance to the branches of a tree, and this pattern develops when streams move across relatively flat and uniform rocks, or over a surface that resists erosion.
Tiangang Lake Solar Fishery
33.223290°,117.984020° - Vantor
A solar panel “fish” is seen amid a large array on Tiangang Lake in Jiangsu Province, eastern China. This solar project, which covers nearly half of the lake’s perimeter, is a combination of a fishery and a photovoltaic power plant with a capacity of 500,000 kilowatts. China added a reported 30 gigawatts of solar capacity in 2019, and solar was the only form of energy production that did not decline during the nation’s coronavirus lockdown in January and February 2020.
Dakar, Senegal
14.692778°,-17.446667° - Planet
Dakar is the capital and largest city of Senegal, with more than 2.4 million people in its metropolitan area. Situated on the Cap-Vert Peninsula in the Atlantic Ocean, it is the westernmost city on the African mainland. Its coastal position at the crossroad of the major sea-lanes linking Europe and South America make Dakar a popular port of call for shipping vessels.
Siberia Wildfires
59.883333°,91.666667° - Julia Petrenko / Greenpeace
Since January, massive wildfires have blazed through Siberia, Russia, exacerbated by record-breaking heat waves in the region. An estimated 47 million acres (19 million hectares) of forests and fields have burned, which is an area larger than the nation of Greece. Wildfires in Siberia have become annual occurrences; however, the extent of this year's fires have heightened concerns among environmentalists about the accelerated melting of the Arctic. In the Krasnoyarsk region, where this image was captured, towns well north of the Arctic Circle have reported high temperatures above 70 degrees Fahrenheit.
Great Barrier Reef
-21.666530°,152.235135° - Planet
The Great Barrier Reef is Earth’s largest structure composed of living things, made of more than 2,900 individual reefs stretching roughly 1,400 miles (2,253 kilometers) offshore of Australia. Perhaps there is no better “canary in the coal mine” for nature’s reaction to a warming planet than the recent coral bleaching events at the reef. Ninety-three percent of the increase in global temperatures has been absorbed by the oceans, raising water temperatures and causing ocean acidification. As a reaction to the warmer waters, coral expel the algae living inside their tissues, which give the coral necessary nutrients that provide up to 90 percent of their energy. Corals can continue to live after bleaching, but often they begin to starve soon thereafter. In 2016, a bleaching event killed approximately 30 percent of the Great Barrier Reef ’s coral, and overall, the average time between bleaching events has halved between 1980 and 2016.
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