Every month on Earth Matters, we offer a puzzling satellite image. The June 2025 puzzler is shown above. Your challenge is to use the comments section to tell us where it is, what we are looking at, and why it is interesting.
How to answer. You can use a few words or several paragraphs. You might simply tell us the location, or you can dig deeper and offer details about what satellite and instrument produced the image, what spectral bands were used to create it, or what is compelling about some obscure feature. If you think something is interesting or noteworthy, tell us about it.
The prize. We cannot offer prize money or a trip on the International Space Station, but we can promise you credit and glory. Well, maybe just credit. Within a week after a puzzler image appears on this blog, we will post an annotated and captioned version as our Image of the Day. After we post the answer, we will acknowledge the first person to correctly identify the image at the bottom of this blog post. We also may recognize readers who offer the most interesting tidbits of information. Please include your preferred name or alias with your comment. If you work for or attend an institution that you would like to recognize, please mention that as well.
Recent winners. If you have won the puzzler in the past few months, or if you work in geospatial imaging, please hold your answer for at least a day to give less experienced readers a chance.
Releasing comments. Savvy readers have solved some puzzlers after a few minutes. To give more people a chance, we may wait 24 to 48 hours before posting comments. Good luck!
coast of Mozambique
Where the Ocean Paints with a Trowel: Bazaruto Archipelago, Mozambique
No, this isn’t a satellite’s attempt at abstract impressionism—it’s the Bazaruto Archipelago putting on a shimmering show off the coast of Mozambique. Here, Earth’s palette includes cerulean, jade, and turquoise, all swirled together like a cosmic marble cake. This spectacular satellite snapshot likely comes courtesy of a sensor like Landsat 9’s OLI-2 or Sentinel-2’s MSI, which specialize in turning coastlines into art galleries.
Front and center we’ve got Ilha de Benguerra and Ilha de Magaruque, two of the Bazaruto archipelago’s sandy superstars, sitting like twin gems in a sea of shifting sands and shallow shoals. What you’re seeing is a glorious mix of tidal flats, submerged sandbars, and seagrass meadows, shaped by powerful currents and daily tides that seem to have a flair for the dramatic.
Why is this interesting? Well, aside from being a textbook example of dynamic coastal geomorphology, these shallow banks play host to rich marine biodiversity, including dugongs that float around like underwater manatees with a better tan. And from above, these features form a natural fingerprint—unique, ever-changing, and impossible to replicate.
Oh, and those gentle waves and silt trails you see painted into the seabed? That’s not just aesthetic—those patterns reveal water depth, sediment transport, and even the quiet work of tides that have more patience than any artist on Earth.
In summary: this place is nature’s version of a sandcastle competition—only it’s been going on for millennia, and the only judge is the Moon.
Moambico
Great Barrier Reef. Not sure if it’s coral heads or sand or both.
Celebes Sea
The Celebes Sea
Whitsundays in Australia