Earth observations taken during STS-98 mission

STS098-714A-020 (7-20 February 2001) ---One of the STS-98 astronauts aboard the Earth-orbiting Space Shuttle Atlantis used a 70mm handheld camera to record this image of Southern California. Snow blanketing the higher elevations in the Los Padres National Forest (center of the image) and that covering the Angeles National Forest (right middle) help to accentuate and separate three major landform regions in southern California. The northern Los Angeles Basin that includes the San Fernando Valley and the Santa Monica Mountains is visible in the lower right quadrant of the image. The western end of the Mojave Desert (upper right) shows the two distinctive mountain boundaries along the southwest and northwest edge of the desert. The San Andreas Fault and the Garlock Fault converge (snow covered in this scene) at the western end of the desert. The intensively irrigated and cultivated southern end of the San Joaquin Valley that includes Bakersfield is visible (upper left) north of the snow-covered, northeast-southwest trending Tehachapi Mountains. The island off of the California coast (bottom left) is Santa Cruz Island.