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• Credit

  Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC

As the southern tip of South America tapers down to the narrow point of Cape Horn, the long column of the Andes Mountains meets the eastern plains in Patagonia. A part of both Chile, image left, and Argentina, image right, Patagonia is a rugged land known for its penguin colonies, mountain glaciers, and a large petrified forest. The ax-shaped peninsula that extends into the Atlantic Ocean is the Valdes Peninsula. To its north, the land bulges out and becomes green as the arid southern highlands give way to the Pampas, grasslands largely used for agriculture. In the top right corner of the image, the Rio de la Plata empties into the Atlantic Ocean. The grey semicircle on its southern shore is Buenos Aires, Argentina’s capital. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired this image on November 2, 2003, spring in the Southern Hemisphere. Several fires have been detected and marked with red dots.

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• Database Updated: February 25 2008