May 21, 2010
NASA photo with “false color” clearly showing the oil. Best demarcation yet. Taken on the 17th – posted the 20th.
Compare with non-colored May 17th photo.
Red + is the once rig location. The white –> is a plume of smoke (more of smoke at link).
(NASA/GSFC/LaRC/JPL, MISR Team)
Caption (ALAN BUIS):
These unique images of the Deepwater Horizon oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico were obtained by the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) instrument aboard NASA’s Terra spacecraft on May 17, 2010, at around 16:40 UTC (11:40 a.m. CDT).
The top panel is a false-color image created by combining data from the red band of the 26-degree forward-viewing camera (where the oil appears dark) with the blue and green bands of the nadir (vertical-viewing) camera (where the oil appears bright). The result causes the oil spill to stand out dramatically in shades of cyan, while other features like clouds and land appear close to their natural color. The Mississippi River Delta is visible in the upper left portion of the image. The red symbol represents the former location of the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform. The image dimensions are 346 by 258 kilometers (215 by 160 miles), and north is toward the top of the image.
