NASA/JPL/NIMA

There are things about Earth we never see, because the human eye is so darn limited. Spacecraft can help. In this picture of an interesting place on Earth, we benefit from the elevated perspective of space and the ability of cameras that detect wavelengths of light outside the optical range.

The composite and rather fantastical rendering shows a complex glacial structure, called a Piedmont, in southeastern Alaska. Piedmont glaciers occur where mountain glaciers fan out into the lowlands. This one, named the Malaspina Glacier, is also the site of many mergers.

The Agassiz Glacier (left) and Seward Glacier (right) are the two primary feeders of the Malaspina complex, which is about 40 miles (65 kilometers) wide and travels 28 miles (45 kilometers from the front of the mountains to the sea.

The image was created by combining visible and infrared data from a Landsat satellite with an elevation model created by the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission. Glacial ice is light blue; snow is white; plants are green; rock is gray or tan. The ocean, in front, is blue. The sky is fake.

The crinkly features result from rock that's carried downslope and deposited at the edges of the melting ice to form long piles, called moraines.

-- Robert Roy Britt