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The coastline of the northeastern U.S., observed from the ISS on February 14, 2013. The Atlantic Ocean, including Cape Cod Bay and Buzzards Bay along the coastlines of the states of Massachusetts and Rhode Island has a burnished, mirror-like appearance in this image. This is due to sunlight reflected off the water surface back towards the astronaut-photographer. The peak reflection point is towards the right side of the image, lending the waters of Long Island Sound (at image center, to the north of Long Island) and the upper Massachusetts coastline an even brighter appearance. Sunglint also illuminates surface waters of Chesapeake Bay (top center) located over 400 km to the southwest of the tip of Long Island. The high viewing angle from the ISS also allows the Earth's curvature, or limb, to be seen, and blue atmospheric layers gradually fade into the darkness of space across the top part of the image. (Photo by NASA via The Atlantic)
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