Oil Slick a Mess of Swirls in Satellite Photo

Satellite image of the Gulf oil slick taken on June 19, 2010 by NASA's Terra satellite. CREDIT: NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team.

A new satellite image reveals swirls of oil spreading northeast from the leaking Deepwater Horizon well in the Gulf of Mexico.

The oil appears as a maze of silvery-gray ribbons in the photo-like image taken on Saturday, June 19, by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite.

The location of the leaking well is marked with a white dot.Oil and gas continue to be captured and burned as part of the emergency response efforts, according to reports by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). And so the black spot north of the oil well in the satellite image could be smoke.

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