Today’s pick of the pics shows the western-most part of the Ganges Delta, as seen by NASA’s ASTER (Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer) instrument on 6 January, 2005. The Hugli River branches off from the Ganges River 300 kilometers (186 miles) to the north, and flows past the city of Calcutta before emptying into the Bay of Bengal. The light tan colors in the water reveal high levels of sediment load, particularly downstream from offshore islands. The deep green colors of some of these islands are mangrove swamps. The size of the image is 55 by 60 kilometers (34 by 37 miles).

Caption and image courtesy of ASTER’s image gallery.