Earth from Space - Image Description

STS068-205-064 Agriculture, Eastern Hokkaido, Japan October 1994
This color infrared image covers almost the same area of eastern Hokkaido as STS68-200-023; however, this image includes large sand spit (lower left) that extends into the Nemuro Strait along the east coast of Hokkaido. A line of northeast to southwest aligned volcanic mountains, including the water-filled caldera, Lake Moshuko (dark, oval feature), and the wooden slopes (deeper reds) are identifiable in the lower right corner of the image. The gridded (dark, intersecting lines) man made pattern that is widespread throughout eastern Hokkaido appears to be an extensive irrigation project to increase agricultural productivity for this region. The lighter colored rural lands highlights the extensive landscape that is being used for the dairy farms and crop production. The darker reds show low-lying, swampy river basins and some hilly topography (near the center of the image). The dark features near the top center are lakes that are part of the Kushiro River drainage basin. A small city is visible along the northern shoreline of Akkeshi Bay (dark feature upper left).

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