In celebration of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, NASA shared this beautiful photo of the Bahamas taken from space. Voters were asked to select their all time favourite image and 56,000 chose this. It was taken from space by NASA’s Enhanced Thematic Mapper plus (ETM+) instrument aboard the Landsat 7 satellite and shows how the ocean tides and currents in the Bahamas sculpted the sand and seaweed beds into these multicoloured, fluted patterns.   According to NASA, this process is similar to how the sand dunes in the Sahara Desert are formed by strong winds. Landsat 7 is the seventh satellite deployed under the Landsat program. It was officially launched by NASA on April 15, 1999 through a partnership with the U.S. Geological Survey. Landsat 7’s mission was only supposed to last for five years but as of last week, the satellite celebrated its 21st year in space.The satellite’s main mission is to capture photos of Earth from orbit. These images are used to create a global archive of clear and unobstructed photos of various features and locations on Earth.