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This Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) image was acquired on July 23, 2001, and covers an area of 64 by 72 km. The data were processed to create a simulated natural color image. From its start as a sleepy Spanish pueblo in 1781, Los Angeles and its metropolitan area has grown to become an ethnically diverse, semitropical megalopolis, laying claim as the principal center of the western United States and the nation’s second largest urban area. The city’s economy is based on international trade, aerospace, agriculture, tourism, and filmmaking. Los Angeles provides a glimpse of the typically cosmopolitan and global city of the future.

ASTER is one of five sensors flying aboard NASA's Terra satellite.

Image courtesy NASA/GSFC/MITI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team