5th Place: Lake Eyre Landsat 5 Acquired August 5, 2006
The scary face in this image is actually inundated patches of shallow Lake Eyre (pronounced "air") in the desert country of northern South Australia.
4th Place: Algerian Abstract Landsat 5 Acquired April 8, 1985
Ridges of wind-blown sand make up Erg Iguidi, an area of ever-shifting sand dunes extending from Algeria into Mauritania in northwestern Africa.
3rd Place: Meandering Mississippi Landsat 7 Acquired May 28, 2003
Small, blocky shapes of towns, fields, and pastures surround the graceful swirls and whorls of the Mississippi River, the largest river system in North America.
2nd Place: Yukon Delta Landsat 7 Acquired September 22, 2002
Countless lakes, sloughs, and ponds are scattered throughout this scene of the Yukon Delta in southwest Alaska.
1st Place: Van Gogh from Space Landsat 7 Acquired July 13, 2005
Swirls of yellow streak a deep blue sea around a long island In the style of Van Gogh's painting "Starry Night," massive congregations of greenish phytoplankton swirl in the dark water around Gotland, a Swedish island in the Baltic Sea.
Landsat's Mission Continues
An artist's rendition of the next Landsat satellite, the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) that will launch in Feb. 2013