A bird’s eye view of the Potomac Water Gap
Today’s Image Of The Day is a stunning satellite image of the Potomac Water Gap, where the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers converge near Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia.
The photos were captured by NASA satellites Operational Land Imager (OLI) and Landsat 8 from an altitude of about 430 miles.
The Potomac Water Gap sits at the intersection of Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
In 1783, Thomas Jefferson famously stood on a piece of shale, now known as Jefferson’s Rock, to soak in the natural beauty. He later wrote in Notes on the State of Virginia that the view was “worth a voyage across the Atlantic.”
“The passage of the Patowmac through the Blue Ridge is perhaps one of the most stupendous scenes in Nature,” Jefferson wrote. “You stand on a very high point of land. On your right comes up the Shenandoah, having ranged along the foot of the mountain a hundred miles to seek a vent. On your left approaches the Patowmac in quest of a passage also. In the moment of their junction they rush together against the mountain, rend it asunder and pass off to the sea.”
Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia sits on the end of the peninsula where the two rivers meet, and has a population of only 293.
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By Rory Arnold, Earth.com Staff Writer
Images: NASA Earth Observatory
