File:Great Barrier Reef, Australia - Flickr - NASA Goddard Photo and Video.jpg
Original file (5,600 × 7,000 pixels, file size: 4.6 MB, MIME type: image/jpeg)
Captions
Summary
editDescriptionGreat Barrier Reef, Australia - Flickr - NASA Goddard Photo and Video.jpg |
NASA image acquired August 10, 2012 Off the coast of Queensland, in north-eastern Australia, lies the Coral Sea, a beautiful blue bit of ocean that covers the world’s largest coral reef system, the Great Barrier Reef. From space, the Great Barrier Reef looks like a string of gem-toned jewels lying roughly parallel to the Australian coastline. In fact, the Reef is made up of over 2,900 individual reefs and about 900 islands. Created by coral polyps, the Reef not only originated from living organisms, it also serves as home for a huge diversity of life. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which adopted the Great Barrier Reef as a World Heritage Site in 1981, it contains not only the world’s largest collection of coral reefs, with 400 types of coral, but the Reef also supports 1,500 species of fish and 4,000 types of mollusk. It also is an important habitat of species such as the dugong (‘sea cow’) and the large green turtle, which are threatened with extinction. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA’s Terra satellite captured this beautiful true-color image on August 10, 2012. The tip of Queensland, which holds Lakefield National Park in the southeast section of the image and Mungkan Kandu National Park in the northwest, bears the typical tan color of a late winter landscape. A few clouds stream over the Coral Sea and over the northeastern-most tip of the land, while the Great Barrier Reef shines in the blue waters just off the coast. On August 1, 2012, PLOS One, an international, peer-reviewed, open-access, online scientific publication, published a study that, for the first time ever, identified melanoma found in the skin of a wild fish population. Scientists from Newcastle University in the United Kingdom diagnosed this skin cancer in 15% of the coral trout (P. leopardus) collected from several of the reefs in the Great Barrier Reef. In domestic fish species, in cats and in humans, an increase in incidence of melanoma is correlated to increased exposure to UV radiation. Melanoma is often an aggressive and fatal type of cancer. The appearance of this syndrome in an economically important species of fish within the Great Barrier Reef raises significant questions, including potential links to increases in UV radiation from stratospheric ozone depletion - alone or in combination with other environmental stressors, the effect of melanoma on the health and longevity of affected coral trout, and the impact of the newly-recognized disease on other fish species and other reefs. Credit: NASA/GSFC/Jeff Schmaltz/MODIS Land Rapid Response Team NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission. Follow us on Twitter Like us on Facebook Find us on Instagram |
Date | |
Source | Great Barrier Reef, Australia |
Author | NASA Goddard Space Flight Center from Greenbelt, MD, USA |
Licensing
edit- You are free:
- to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work
- to remix – to adapt the work
- Under the following conditions:
- attribution – You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
This image was originally posted to Flickr by NASA Goddard Photo and Video at https://www.flickr.com/photos/24662369@N07/7774272676. It was reviewed on 17 August 2012 by FlickreviewR and was confirmed to be licensed under the terms of the cc-by-2.0. |
17 August 2012
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse |
This file is in the public domain in the United States because it was solely created by NASA. NASA copyright policy states that "NASA material is not protected by copyright unless noted". (See Template:PD-USGov, NASA copyright policy page or JPL Image Use Policy.) | ||
Warnings:
|
File history
Click on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time.
Date/Time | Thumbnail | Dimensions | User | Comment | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
current | 19:35, 17 August 2012 | 5,600 × 7,000 (4.6 MB) | Werieth (talk | contribs) | == {{int:filedesc}} == {{Information |Description=NASA image acquired August 10, 2012 Off the coast of Queensland, in north-eastern Australia, lies the Coral Sea, a beautiful blue bit of ocean that covers the world’s largest coral reef system, the G... |
You cannot overwrite this file.
File usage on Commons
There are no pages that use this file.