PIA02643: Mouth of the Amazon
 Target Name:  Earth
 Is a satellite of:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  Terra
 Spacecraft:  Terra
 Instrument:  MISR
 Product Size:  1639 x 1810 pixels (w x h)
 Produced By:  JPL
 Other  
Information: 
MISR Site
 Primary Data Set:  Earth Observing System (EOS)
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA02643.tif (8.415 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA02643.jpg (629 kB)

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

Flowing over 6450 kilometers eastward across Brazil, the Amazon River originates in the Peruvian Andes as tiny mountain streams that eventually combine to form one of the world's mightiest rivers. This image of the Amazon's mouth was captured by MISR's vertical-viewing (nadir) camera on September 8, 2000 during Terra orbit 3862. The image is approximately 380 kilometers in width.

While the Amazon is surpassed in length by the Nile, it carries the largest volume of freshwater in the world, accounting for nearly 20 percent of the Earth's discharge into the oceans. Millions of cubic feet of water empty into the Atlantic every second, and the effluent is transported to very large distances from shore.

MISR was built and is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, for NASA's Office of Earth Science, Washington, DC. The Terra satellite is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology.

Image Credit:
NASA/GSFC/JPL, MISR Team

Image Addition Date:
2001-02-07