Jump to content

英文维基 | 中文维基 | 日文维基 | 草榴社区

File:Fires along the Rio Xingu, Brazil - NASA Earth Observatory.jpg

Page contents not supported in other languages.
This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Original file (1,440 × 960 pixels, file size: 329 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg)

Summary

Description
English: The rainforest of South America, also known as Amazonia, has been undergoing a continual and accelerated conversion process into farmlands (including pasture for livestock) since the early 1960s. This process has typically been achieved by clearing the forest using fire—“slash and burn”—followed by planting of crops. The generally infertile soils of this rainforest—the largest such forest on Earth—make sustainable farming difficult. This drives people to convert more forest into farmland. The area of clearing can be considerable, and since the deforested regions are easily identifiable and measurable from space, the rate of deforestation is likewise easy to track.

This astronaut photograph illustrates slash-and-burn forest clearing along the Rio Xingu (Xingu River) in the state of Matto Grasso, Brazil. The photo was taken from the International Space Station, a platform from which astronauts can capture images of the Earth from a variety of viewing angles. The perspective above shows both the horizontal position and the extent of the fire lines next to the river, while also providing a sense of the vertical structure of the smoke plumes.

Light colored areas within the river channel are sand bars, which show that the river is in its annual low-flow/low-water stage. For a sense of scale, the river channel is approximately 63 kilometers (39 miles) long in this view. Rivers are the natural highways in Amazonia, which may explain why the burning is occurring right next to the Xingu River, one of Amazonia’s largest.

In recent years, forest preservation has gained traction in the region as a result of new valuation of the ecosystem services provided by the forest, concerns about the impact of the burning on global climate change, and greater sensitivity to the ethnic and biological heritage of Amazonia.

Astronaut photograph ISS029-E-8032 was acquired on September 17, 2011, with a Nikon D2Xs digital camera using a 200 mm lens, and is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations experiment and Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, Johnson Space Center. The image was taken by the Expedition 29 crew. The image has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast. Lens artifacts have been removed. The International Space Station Program supports the laboratory as part of the ISS National Lab to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public, and to make those images freely available on the Internet. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. Caption by William L. Stefanov, Jacobs/ESCG at NASA-JSC.


International Space Station InsigniaISS Crew Earth Observations: ISS029-E-8032International Space Station emblem
Identification
Mission ISS029 (Expedition 29)
Roll E
Frame 8032
Country or Geographic Name BRAZIL
Features RIO XINGU, FOREST, AMAZONIA, SMOKE PLUMES
Center Point Latitude -11.8° N
Center Point Longitude -53.6° E
Camera
Camera Tilt 28°
Camera Focal Length 200 mm
Camera Nikon D2Xs
Film 4288 x 2848 pixel CMOS sensor, RGBG imager color filter.
Quality
Percentage of Cloud Cover 0-10%
Nadir What is Nadir?
Date 2011-09-17
Time 20:13:03
Nadir Point Latitude -12.8° N
Nadir Point Longitude -55.1° E
Nadir to Photo Center Direction Northeast
Sun Azimuth 277°
Spacecraft Altitude 205 nautical miles (380 km)
Sun Elevation Angle 19°
Orbit Number 1537
Date
Source Fires along the Rio Xingu, Brazil
Author NASA's Earth Observatory
Other versions
Camera location14° 13′ 18.44″ S, 50° 48′ 02.81″ W Kartographer map based on OpenStreetMap.View this and other nearby images on: OpenStreetMapinfo

Licensing

w:en:Creative Commons
attribution
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
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 Earth Observatory at https://www.flickr.com/photos/68824346@N02/6283416535. It was reviewed on 2 July 2012 by FlickreviewR and was confirmed to be licensed under the terms of the cc-by-2.0.

2 July 2012

Public domain
This file is in the public domain in the United States because it was created by the Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, of the NASA Johnson Space Center. NASA copyright policy states that "NASA material is not protected by copyright unless noted". (NASA media use guidelines or Conditions of Use of Astronaut Photographs). Photo source: ISS029-E-8032.

العربيَّة | Deutsch | English | español | français | italiano | kurdî | македонски | മലയാളം | português | sicilianu | +/−

Captions

Add a one-line explanation of what this file represents

Items portrayed in this file

depicts

17 September 2011

14°13'18.437"S, 50°48'2.812"W

File history

Click on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time.

Date/TimeThumbnailDimensionsUserComment
current17:22, 2 July 2012Thumbnail for version as of 17:22, 2 July 20121,440 × 960 (329 KB)Dzlinker== {{int:filedesc}} == {{Information |Description=The rainforest of South America, also known as Amazonia, has been undergoing a continual and accelerated conversion process into farmlands (including pasture for livestock) since the early 1960s. This p...

The following page uses this file:

Global file usage

The following other wikis use this file:

Metadata