Earth from Space - Image Description

Coastlines of the Southern Baltic Sea
The crew of the International Space Station (ISS) took this panorama looking aft (back along the orbital path) of the spacecraft as the sun was setting over the North Sea. Seen from the ISS, the sun's reflection point moves quickly across the landscape, momentarily lighting up water bodies. In this fleeting view the coast of southern Norway is outlined near the horizon. The strongest reflection of the sun highlights the narrow sea passage known as the Skagerrak--revealing the thin tip of Denmark. Numerous small lakes in southern Sweden appear image center, and scattered clouds cast complex shadows on the southern Baltic Sea. The sweeping curves of the sand spit on the Polish coast, and the long barrier islands on the Russian coast appear in the foreground at the edge of the sun's reflection disc.

This service is provided by the International Space Station program and the JSC Earth Science & Remote Sensing Unit, ARES Division, Exploration Integration Science Directorate.