The Kerguelen Islands in the Indian Ocean
The Kerguelen Islands in the Indian Ocean Today’s Image of the Day from NASA Earth Observatory features an astronaut view of the Kerguelen Islands in the southern Indian Ocean.
On the western side of the islands, winds were pushing low-lying clouds against the shore. At the same time, ship wave clouds appear rippling over smaller outlying islands.
In the bottom if the image, sunglint highlights waves that are moving toward the southern coastline.
The Kerguelen Islands are much closer to Antarctica than to Africa and Australia, and are isolated from human populations. One small settlement, Port-aux-Français, hosts seasonal researchers for scientific studies.The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world’s oceanic divisions, covering 70,560,000 km (27,240,000 sq mi) or 19.8% of the water on Earth’s surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by the Southern Ocean or Antarctica, depending on the definition in use. Along its core, the Indian Ocean has some large marginal or regional seas such as the Arabian Sea, the Laccadive Sea, the Somali Sea, Bay of Bengal, and the Andaman Sea
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By Chrissy Sexton, Earth.com Staff Writer
Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory
