By Iain Todd

Published: Wednesday, 26 June 2024 at 10:55 AM


A NASA satellite has captured an amazing view showing the North York Moors and the North Yorkshire city of Middlesborough from space.

The OLI-2 (Operational Land Imager-2) on the Landsat 9 Earth observational satellite captured the image of the UK’s North York Moors on 26 December 2023.

See more pictures of Earth from space and an image of northern Europe from the ISS

Click to expand. NASA Earth Observatory image by Wanmei Liang, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.

In the image, the moors are seen as brown formations, while green strips are valleys that were formed in the landscape by glacial meltwater.

The North York Moores are perhaps most famous across the world for their appearance in the writings of the Brontës, who grew up in the area during the Victorian Era.

Emily Brontë’s famous novel Wuthering Heights features the moors most significantly, but they also appear in Charlotte Brontë’s classic novel Jane Eyre.

NASA Earth Observatory images by Wanmei Liang, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.
Click to expand. NASA Earth Observatory image by Wanmei Liang, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.

The North York Moors cover an area of 554 square miles (1,436 square kilometres) and 26 miles of coastline.

The region became a National Park on 28 November 1952 and is one of 15 National Parks in the United Kingdom.

Starry skies over Ellerburn, North York Moors. Credit: Tony Marsh
Starry skies over Ellerburn, North York Moors. Credit: Tony Marsh

Heather moorland in the North York Moors covers an area of over 44,000 hectares, around one third of the total National Park.

And the region is also well-known among UK astronomers for its dark-sky areas: the Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors Dark Sky Reserves.

Find out more about the North York Moors and visiting at www.northyorkmoors.org.uk.

NASA Earth Observatory images by Wanmei Liang, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.