Images
November 30, 2025 - Central Florida
Tweet
Once known for production of citrus, cattle, and broad expanses of wetlands, the heartbeat of modern Central Florida has turned to tourism, business, industry, and agriculture. In the mid-1850s, the region was filled with scrubland and swamp. The 1880s saw the rise of a large project to drain the wetlands, creating dry land suitable for farming and homes. Citrus grew in abundance all through Central Florida, spurring the economy, until a vicious cold snap in 1894-1895 killed or weakened most of the trees in the region.
By the mid-1940s, Central Florida was growing rapidly. Merritt Island, near Cape Canaveral, became a missile testing site in the late 1940s. NASA used the same location to launch spacecraft in the 1960s and soon bought over 100,000 acres of nearby land for what is now the Kennedy Space Center. The mid-1960s also saw the planning for Walt Disney World in the Orlando area and the park opened in 1971. The massive theme park, along with the beaches along both coasts, are now the heart of the tourism industry which drives much of the economy of the region.
On November 22, 2025, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired this true-color image of Central Florida.
The most notable natural features in this image includes numerous lakes, such as round Lake Apopka in the north and large Lake Okeechobee in the south. A long tan line, stretching from near Lake Apopka to Lake Okeechobee is the Lake Wales Ridge, a sandy spine of low-rising hills. This ridge was the only portion of the state that projected above sea level about 2 million years ago, when the rest of what is now Florida was submerged under the ocean. Several parks and state forests protect parts of the Lake Wales Ridge and the high number of plants and animals that live here, many of which are listed as threatened or endangered.
Areas of human habitation and construction are marked by concrete-gray colored pixels. The large city of Orlando, to the east and southeast of Lake Apopka, is easily visible as are the cities of Tampa, Clearwater, and Sarasota surrounding Tampa Bay along the western coast. Merrit Island, home to NASA’s Kennedy Space Flight Center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, can be seen as a triangular-shaped out-pouching along the Atlantic coast, in the east.
Image Facts
Satellite:
Aqua
Date Acquired: 11/20/2025
Resolutions:
1km (100 KB), 500m (277.9 KB), 250m (334.6 KB)
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit:
MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC
Once known for production of citrus, cattle, and broad expanses of wetlands, the heartbeat of modern Central Florida has turned to tourism, business, industry, and agriculture. In the mid-1850s, the region was filled with scrubland and swamp. The 1880s saw the rise of a large project to drain the wetlands, creating dry land suitable for farming and homes. Citrus grew in abundance all through Central Florida, spurring the economy, until a vicious cold snap in 1894-1895 killed or weakened most of the trees in the region.
By the mid-1940s, Central Florida was growing rapidly. Merritt Island, near Cape Canaveral, became a missile testing site in the late 1940s. NASA used the same location to launch spacecraft in the 1960s and soon bought over 100,000 acres of nearby land for what is now the Kennedy Space Center. The mid-1960s also saw the planning for Walt Disney World in the Orlando area and the park opened in 1971. The massive theme park, along with the beaches along both coasts, are now the heart of the tourism industry which drives much of the economy of the region.
On November 22, 2025, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired this true-color image of Central Florida.
The most notable natural features in this image includes numerous lakes, such as round Lake Apopka in the north and large Lake Okeechobee in the south. A long tan line, stretching from near Lake Apopka to Lake Okeechobee is the Lake Wales Ridge, a sandy spine of low-rising hills. This ridge was the only portion of the state that projected above sea level about 2 million years ago, when the rest of what is now Florida was submerged under the ocean. Several parks and state forests protect parts of the Lake Wales Ridge and the high number of plants and animals that live here, many of which are listed as threatened or endangered.
Areas of human habitation and construction are marked by concrete-gray colored pixels. The large city of Orlando, to the east and southeast of Lake Apopka, is easily visible as are the cities of Tampa, Clearwater, and Sarasota surrounding Tampa Bay along the western coast. Merrit Island, home to NASA’s Kennedy Space Flight Center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, can be seen as a triangular-shaped out-pouching along the Atlantic coast, in the east.
Image Facts
Satellite:
Aqua
Date Acquired: 11/20/2025
Resolutions:
1km (100 KB), 500m (277.9 KB), 250m (334.6 KB)
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit:
MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC
