The Magnitude Of The Gulf Of Mexico Oil Spill Shown From Space!

In the wake of an oil rig explosion that led to a massive spill in the Gulf of Mexico, NASA has released a pair of striking pictures depicting the disaster.

Along with Twitter (), NASA has been the go-to source of late when it comes to finding photos of both natural and unnatural phenomena — the organization has brought us amazing footage of the sun, as well as satellite images of the aftermath of the volcanic eruption in Iceland.

So if you’re one of the many Internet () lurkers or Twitter users out there hungry for more info about the spill (several Twitter fans have been retweeting a biting message from Bill Maher to drilling enthusiasts), we suggest keeping an eye on NASA’s Earth Observatory. In the meantime, we’ve embedded these images above. Both images were captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite — the first shows a wider shot of the oil slick spreading to the Louisiana coast, while the second depicts a closer view.

[img credit: NASA]