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Earth from Space 2000 Calendar

This image is centered on a portion of the western Pacific Ocean, several hundred miles due east of Papua New Guinea, near the Solomon Islands. The white, curved region near the top of the image is a portion of the Ontong Java Atoll. In this image, red represents reflection from ice particles in a storm cell, and blue, green, and black represent surrounding ocean. Bright areas of the image correspond to regions of high wind speed, and dark areas of the image correspond to regions of low wind speed. The dark lines that extend across the image are produced by ocean currents. The image was obtained by SIR-C/X-SAR on the Space Shuttle Endeavor on April 10, 1994 and shows an area about 13 mi (21 km) on a side.