NASA News & Updates: Satellite Image Of Caspian Sea Shows Mystery Lines

Crisscrossing lines showed up in a satellite image of the Caspian Sea acquired on April 16, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)'s Earth Observatory. This startling image of the Caspian Sea was captured by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on the Landsat 8 satellite.

Scientist Stanislav Ogorodov from the Lomonosov Moscow State University told the NASA Earth Observatory secret between the mysterious green lines in the Caspian Sea is ice, Live Science reported. "Undoubtedly, most of these tracks are the result of ice gouging," Ogorodov said.   

What caused crisscrossing lines seen in this satellite pic of North Caspian Sea? Find out: https://t.co/lnPVn3uU0j pic.twitter.com/zTLoDsmner

— NASA (@NASA) April 25, 2016

Ice "Hummocks"

According to the NASA Earth Observatory, Ogorodov said that the particular part of the Caspian Sea captured through the OLI is very shallow at only around 3 meters deep. In wintertime, the ice that forms in this area of the Caspian Sea is about half a meter thick, which means that most of the ice does not reach the Caspian Sea's floor.

Still, the ice that forms on the Caspian Sea has a tendency to be "warm" and thin, resulting in an ice cover that is easily deformed by wind and sea currents. As ice pieces are pushed together, some are forced upward and downward into "hummocks" whose frozen keels may reach the Caspian Sea's floor and scour it as the ice keels move.

The Caspian Sea

The Caspian Sea spans nearly 750 miles or 1,200 kilometers from north to south, according to Britannica. Its average width is 200 miles or 320 kilometers. It is the world's largest inland body of water.

The Caspian Sea is bordered by Kazakhstan in the northeast, Russia in the northwest, Iran in the south, Turkmenistan in the southeast and Azerbaijan in the southwest. It also houses about one-third of the Earth's inland surface water.

What can you say about these mysterious looking lines in the Caspian Sea captured via satellite? Write your comments below.