: Aral Sea

A shrinking sea and a gateway to space, Kazachstan

The Aral Sea in Central Asia is shown in this Envisat image. The Aral Sea, located on the border between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan (to the south), is actually a lake rather than a sea. Over the last 40 years, the Aral Sea, once the fourth largest lake in the world, has evaporated to half its original surface area and a quarter its initial volume, leaving roughly a 36 000 square kilometre zone of dry white-coloured salt terrain now called the Aralkum Desert.
Envisat acquired this image on 14 July 2006 with its Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) instrument while working in Full Resolution Mode to provide a spatial resolution of 300 metres. The image has a width of 545 kilometres.

more ... | ESA |
foto : © ESA | Satellite images
:: UH