Bahrain’s island becomes ‘C’ in NASA’s ‘ABC’ image gallery

Artificial islands from Bahrain were featured by NASA as part of a series of photos taken from space, which showcased all 26 letters of English alphabet.

Durrat Al Bahrain’s C shaped Islands received massive global attention when a NASA expert included its satellite images to a photo series. Adam Voiland, a science writer for the Nasa Earth Observatory, made the effort of collecting pictures of all 26 English alphabets.

“A few years ago, while working on a story about wildfires, a ‘V’ appeared to me in a satellite image of a smoke plume over Canada. That image made me wonder: could I track down all 26 letters of the English alphabet using only NASA satellite imagery and astronaut photography?” Voiland said.

He said he started by collecting images of ephemeral features like clouds, phytoplankton blooms, and dust clouds that formed shapes reminiscent of letters.

He added while O and C were easy to find, others such as A, B and R were maddeningly difficult. 

“An astronaut captured the photograph of an artificial island at the southern end of Bahrain on January 23, 2011. The beach sand on tropical islands is mostly made up of calcium carbonate from the shells and skeletons of marine organisms”, NASA stated. 

Voiland  stated in his photo-caption for the Durrat Al Bahrain, “Big C, little C, what begins with C? This curving crescent of carbonate and quartz clinging to the coast. Contrails from jets cruising over cumulus clouds. The Corolis force, chlorofluorocarbons, and crafty coccolithophores!”