NASA once again released high-resolution satellite imagery of the BP oil spill currently spreading across the Gulf of Mexico. They come at a critical moment: the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration yesterday announced a “small portion of the oil slick has reached the Loop Current in the form of light to very light sheens.”
A recent NASA photo (above) displays this oil column. Its photo description explains: “The oil slick appears as a dull gray on the water’s surface and stretches south from the Mississippi Delta with what looks like a tail.” This Terra satellite image of the Gulf oil spill was taken on May 17 at 16:40 UTC (12:40 p.m. EDT).
Also, NASA released an image using its Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer instrument, which captured sunshine glinting off portions of the oil spill. NASA explains the photo (below): The visible image showed three bright areas of sunglint within the area of the gray-beige colored spill. Sunglint is a mirror-like reflection of the sun off the water’s surface. In calm waters, the rounded image of the sun would be seen in a satellite image. However, the waves in the Gulf blurred the reflection and created an appearance of three bright areas in a line on the ocean’s surface.
This photo offers further evidence of a portion of the oil spill moving towards the Loop Current. Due to this news, federal officials doubled the area of the Gulf of Mexico where fishing is no longer allowed due to the spill. “The ban takes a 46,000-square-mile chunk out of some of America’s most productive coastal fishing grounds,” MSNBC reports.
The NOAA is also reassuring Americans about its upgraded safety protocols: “The federal and state governments have systems in place to test and monitor seafood safety, prohibit harvesting from affected areas, and keep oiled products out of the marketplace.”
The Obama administration is facing criticism over its response to the oil spill. MSNBC reports scientists believe that the NOAA and other agencies have been “slow to investigate the magnitude of the spill and the damage it is causing in the deep ocean.”
