3 min readImage of the Day for June 22, 2026Drifting sea ice fragments near Alaska’s Saint Lawrence and Nunivak islands and colorful water around the Yukon Delta heralded the approach of the summer solstice.NASA Earth ObservatoryJun 22, 2026 Article
View more Images of the Day:
When clouds parted in early June 2026, satellites glimpsed hints of summer’s approach in the Bering Sea off Alaska’s coast. Sea ice, broken into small fragments, took a few final spins on its way to melting completely, while rivers swollen with snowmelt washed sediment and organic material out to sea.
These images, acquired with the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) on NASA's Terra satellite on June 3, 2026, capture the seasonal transition. A false-color view of the area (right) brings out features of the landscape that are more subtle in the natural-color scene (left), as human eyes would see it. In false color, the tundra and marsh vegetation appear green, and ice-free rivers and thermokarst lakes are dark blue. Sea ice and snow, where they still linger, appear light blue.
Amid the seasonal phenomena playing out in the images stand Saint Lawrence and Nunivak islands. Both have volcanic origins and are among the largest islands in the United States. They contain extensive basaltic lava flows forming small shield volcanoes, along with other features such as cinder cones and maars, or low-lying volcanic craters.
