NASA MODIS Image of the Day: December 22, 2011 – Mawson and Ingrid Christensen coasts, Antarctica
On December 16, 2011 the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Aqua satellite passed over the Mawson and Ingrid Christensen coasts and captured this true-color image of an icy summer day in Antarctica.
In this image, the Southern Ocean appears black while clouds, ice and snow appear white.
Marine stratocumulus clouds can be seen in the upper left and upper right sections of the image. Sea ice, which thins in the lengthening light of summer, fills the central area. The Mawson and Ingrid Christensen lie in the lower section of the image, and coasts are covered with ice and snow. Layers of white cloud cast shadows over the coast in several locations. Brown can be seen in mountainous areas, where the soil is bare. The Mawson and Ingrid Christensen coasts are home to rookeries of Emperor Penguins (Aptenodytes forsteri), the largest and tallest species of penguin on Earth. The birds breed in extreme cold of the Antarctic winter, when they travel 50-120 kilometers (30-75 miles) in order to gather in large breeding colonies (rookeries), which may contain thousands of penguins for up to eight months. Such a large gathering of birds can leave a mark on the landscape. In 2009, the British Antarctic Survey announced that it was able to identify Emperor Penguin colonies by tell-tale reddish-brown patches seen on satellite images. The scientists were able to identify 10 new colonies by documenting extensive areas of excrement–covered snow in areas where no breeding colonies had formerly been identified. Because it is summertime, the birds have dispersed and the snow is a pristine white.
