July 14, 2023 - Badlands National Park

Badlands
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The U.S. National Park Service calls Badlands National Park the “Land
of Stone and Light” —a moniker that truly seems to fit, even when the
rugged refuge is viewed from space. On July 10, 2023, the Moderate
Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite
acquired a true-color image that shows the vast fossil-rich geological
deposits of the Badlands shining against the surrounding green prairie.

Sitting only about 75 miles (120 km) from Rapid City, the second-most
populous city in South Dakota, Badlands National Park spans about
244,000 acres (100,000 hectares) of spectacular scenery. This includes
rocky buttes and multi-toned spires that reveal the results of
geological deposition and erosive processes that have taken millions of
years to create. The scenery also includes mixed-grass prairie, a
remnant of the ecosystem that once dominated the central third of the
North American Great Plains and spanned about 26 million hectares
(156,000 square miles). Today, the Badlands National Park provides home
for many resilient prairie species, including Prairie Dogs, Bighorn
Sheep, and the endangered Black-footed Ferret.

Image Facts
Satellite: Terra
Date Acquired: 7/10/2023
Resolutions: 1km (135.8 KB), 500m (379.5 KB), 250m (996.4
KB)
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC



https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/individual.php?db_date=2023-07-14

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