Overview
- The Operational Land Imager on Landsat 8 captured the scene on June 16, 2025, using USGS data, and NASA Earth Observatory published it on December 17 as its Image of the Day.
- Five stacked lagoon basins form the snowman-like pattern spanning about 22 kilometers near Cape Billings on Russia’s Chukchi Peninsula.
- NASA identifies the features as thermokarst lakes produced when summer thaw causes permafrost ground to slump into meltwater-filled depressions.
- Persistent winds and waves likely stretched and aligned the ovals, while thin separating ridges may mark the edges of subsurface ice wedges.
- Ice cover is typical even in June at Billings, where the mean daily minimum temperature is about −0.6 °C (30.9 °F).