Only a few clouds colored a clear sky over southern Florida and the Caribbean in mid-April, 2020. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s Terra satellite acquired a gorgeous true-color image of the scene on April 9.

The peacock blue that shines in the waters east and south of southern Florida mark areas of shallow depth. Near Florida, the Bahamas and Cuba, the underwater terrain is hilly, and the crests of many of these hills comprise the islands of the Bahamas.

The most striking feature of this image is the Great Bahama Bank, a massive underwater hill underlying Andros Island in the west, Eleuthera Island in the east, and multiple islands in between. To the north, another bank underlies another set of islands, including Grand Bahama. The varied colors of these banks suggest their surfaces are somewhat uneven. The banks’ distinct contours, sharply outlined in dark blue, indicate that the ocean floor drops dramatically around them. In fact, over the banks, the water depth is often less than 10 meters (33 feet), but the surrounding basin plunges to depths as low as 4,000 meters (13,100 feet). The Gulf of Batabano, off of northwestern Cuba, also appears iridescent peacock blue.

Image Facts

Satellite: Terra

Date Acquired: 4/9/2020

Resolutions: , ,

Bands Used: 1,4,3

Image Credit: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC