Today’s Image of the Day comes from the NASA Earth Observatory and features a look at several coastlines along the southern Baltic Sea.

Featured in the photo are the coasts of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Poland, Russia, and Lithuania.

This image was captured by an astronaut on board the International Space Station just as the sun was setting along the North Sea.

The Baltic Sea is a mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean, enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden, northeast Germany, Poland, Russia and the North and Central European Plain.

The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 10°E to 30°E longitude. A marginal sea of the Atlantic, with limited water exchange between the two water bodies, the Baltic Sea drains through the Danish Straits into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, Great Belt and Little Belt. It includes the Gulf of Bothnia, the Bay of Bothnia, the Gulf of Finland, the Gulf of Riga and the Bay of Gdańsk.

The Baltic Proper is bordered on its northern edge, at the latitude 60°N, by the Åland islands and the Gulf of Bothnia, on its northeastern edge by the Gulf of Finland, on its eastern edge by the Gulf of Riga, and in the west by the Swedish part of the southern Scandinavian Peninsula.

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By Rory Arnold, Earth.com Staff Writer

Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory