This satellite image of the oil slick off the coast of Louisiana was capture by NASA's Aqua satellite on April 25, 2010.
Click on image for full size
Image courtesy of NASA/MODIS.
Huge Oil Spill in Gulf of Mexico
A large oil drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico caught fire and sank after an explosion on April 20, 2010. Eleven workers were killed and several others injured in the accident.
After the oil rig sank, a huge oil slick formed in the Gulf of Mexico near the delta of the Mississippi River. As of April 28th, clean-up crews have not yet been able to close off the damaged oil well. An estimated 200,000 gallons of oil are leaking daily into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The slick covers about 600 square miles of the Gulf and is currently less than 20 miles from the Louisiana coast.
The Coast Guard set fire to a section of the oil slick to try to get rid of some of the oil. They may try to burn other parts of the slick. They hope to prevent the oil from coming ashore at wildlife refuges along the coast of Louisiana and Mississippi (Delta National Wildlife Refuge and Breton National Wildlife Refuge on the Chandeleur Islands).
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