The Niagara River (a Native American word for “at the neck”), linkingLake Erie and Lake Ontario, flows around Goat Island, and thenplummets over Horseshoe and American Falls, better known as NiagaraFalls. The port city of Buffalo, New York is located at the northeastcorner of Lake Erie where the river first leaves the lake. The imagealso includes the infamous Love Canal. In the late 1970s and early1980s, as a result of chemical wastes having been dumped in the area ofthe Love Canal from 1947 to 1952, the area was evacuated. In 1990, aftera 12-year cleanup effort, the federal government declared parts of thearea habitable and reopened those areas.
This image was acquired on September 8, 2001 by the AdvancedSpaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA’sTerra satellite. With its 14 spectral bands from the visible to thethermal infrared wavelength region, and its high spatial resolution of15 to 90 meters (about 50 to 300 feet), ASTER images Earth to map andmonitor the changing surface of our planet.
Size: 56.4 x 53.4 km (35.0 x 33.1 miles)
Location: 43.0 deg. North lat., 78.9 deg. West long.
Orientation: North at top
Image Data: green, red, near-infrared
Original Data Resolution: 15 meters epr pixel
Date Acquired: September 8, 2001
References & Resources
Image courtesy NASA/GSFC/MITI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team
