Earth from Space - Image Description

STS062-152-252 North Houston, Texas, U.S.A. March 1994
The landscape outside metropolitan Houston consists of flat coastal plains and rolling grasslands west and northwest of the city and darker, dense stands of vegetation, primarily pine forests, to the north. Several highway systems radiate from Houston--Interstate Highway 45 northward from central Houston through Conroe and Huntsville toward Dallas; U.S. Highway 59 to the northeast; and U.S. Highway 290 to the northwest. Apparent north of Houston are the V-shaped runways of Bush Intercontinental Airport with muddy Lake Houston to its east and Lake Conroe, northwest of Conroe, with brown sediment in its northern reaches. Visible are small, dark Gibbons Creek Lake; a segment of the southeast-flowing Brazos River and its floodplain; and a small area of cultivated fields between western Houston and the Brazos River.

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