OBSERVATION / 010

A coastline by design.

Astronaut view of Dubai’s coast, with palm-shaped artificial islands and The World archipelago against dark Gulf waters.

NASA / Johnson Space Center · ISS Expedition 67

Location: Dubai coast / United Arab Emirates
Image acquired: April 6, 2022
Platform / instrument: International Space Station / Nikon D4
Image type: Astronaut photograph

Field notes

Palm-shaped islands and a miniature world map interrupt the shoreline of Dubai. An astronaut aboard the International Space Station photographed these large land-reclamation projects in April 2022.

Builders dredged sediment from the seafloor, placed it in planned shapes, and stabilized the new land with stone. The resulting geometry makes human engineering visible from orbit. The photograph preserves the coast as it appeared on its acquisition date; it does not show today’s construction progress.

Read NASA’s full account ↗

This is dated source imagery. The homepage overlay is a graphic treatment, not a georeferenced measurement.