The Aral Sea as seen by Envisat

The shrinking Aral Sea, located on the border between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan (to the south), is shown in this image, acquired on 14 July 2006 with Envisat's Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) instrument while working in Full Resolution Mode to provide a spatial resolution of 300 metres. The image has a width of 545 kilometres.

Located about 200 kilometres east of the Aral Sea is the Baikonur Cosmodrome – the Russian-operated space launch facility located in the south-central part of Kazakhstan.