Area and Volume Contrast in Central Asia Lakes

The NOAA/NASA Suomi NPP satellite's VIIRS instrument captured this image of the central Asia region bordered by Kyrgyzstan to the south, Kazakhstan to the north and west and China to the east November 5, 2017.

As measured by surface area , Lake Balkhash in Kazakhstan is 6300 square miles in size, compared to Issyk Kul in Kyrgyzstan at 2400 square miles. When measuring by volume however, Issyk Kul at 420 cubic miles greatly surpasses Lake Balkhash's 27 cubic miles.

Although true-color images like this may appear to be photographs of Earth, they aren't. They are created by combining data from the three color channels on the VIIRS instrument sensitive to the red, green and blue (or RGB) wavelengths of light into one composite image. In addition, data from several other channels are often also included to cancel out or correct atmospheric interference that may blur parts of the image.

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