Photo Details

What appears to be a stroke of thick red paint in this false-color satellite image is actually a remarkable interplay of light and cloud in the Canadian Rockies. Angling through the mountains is part of the Rocky Mountain Trench, a valley that extends from Montana in the US, to just south of the Yukon Territory in Canada. Low clouds filled a part of the Trench near the border between the provinces of Alberta and British Columbia. The light-reflecting nature of the clouds coupled with low sun elevation resulted in this startling effect. Image courtesy of USGS.