NASA satellite captures a picture of India’s largest salt producer from space

Prabhjote GillOct 21, 2019, 10:26 IST

Business Insider India

NASA's Operational Land Imager (OLI) aboard the Landsat 8 Satellite captures India's largest salt producer region, Gujarat, from spaceNASA Earth Observatory

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Earth Observatory shared an image of salt ponds in Gujarat — India’s largest salt producer.
Gujarat’s Bhavnagar and the Gulf of Khambhat are highlighted in the image.
Similar salt deposits have been captured by NASA of other major salt producing regions around the world.

India is the third largest salt producer in the world and most of it can be traced back one region — the western state of Gujarat. And, now the salt bearing region was captured from space.

Salt evaporation ponds in Gujarat's BhavnagarNASA Earth Observatory

Gujarat accounts for three quarters of India’s annual salt production and is home to half of the country’s salt workers.

The image captured by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) aboard the Landsat 8 Satellite shows the city of Bhavnagar — one of the leading salt-producing districts in Gujarat — on February 28, 2019.
The colourful rectangles in the image are salt evaporation ponds, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Earth Observatory. It’s a feature often found in major salt-producing areas.

Gujarat's Gulf of Khambhat adjacent to BhavnagarNASA Earth Observatory

The Gulf of Khambhat is also seen in the image. In the past, it was responsible for 24% of the salt production in the state. Because of the abundance of salt in the area, it is also home to the Central Salt and Marine Chemicals Research Institute.

Here are some other salt producing regions captured by NASA:

See NASA photographs of salt producing regions from space >>

Similar rectangles spotted in the Makgadikgadi Pan in Botswana stand out from their surrounding area

^Source:^{NASA Earth Observatory}

Tanzania’s lifeless Lake Natron full of warm, salty and alkaline water shines a bright red when seen from space

^Source:^{NASA Earth Observatory}

NASA’s Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus on the Landsat 7 satellite photographs the Bo Hai coast in China’s Shandong Province, which has a long history of producing salt

^Source:^{NASA's Earth Observatory}

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station zoom in on the salt ponds along the Rhone River in southern France

^Source:^{NASA Earth Observatory}

NASA's OLI spots salt from nearby marshes in Aigues-Mortes, France is harvested for industrial, chemical, and pharmaceutical uses

^{Source:NASA Earth Observatory}

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