Venice Lagoon from ISS Space Station

Credit: NASA

A narrow barrier island protects the Lagoon of Venice from storm waves in the northern Adriatic Sea, and breakwaters protect inlets to the lagoon. 

Red tiles on the roofs of Venice contrast with the grays of the sister city of Mestre, and the cities are joined by a prominent causeway. 

What appears to be another causeway joining the island to the airport (top right) is actually the combined wakes of many boats and water taxis shuttling between them. 

Palazzo Podestarile. City Hall from Mestre

Small, bright agricultural fields on well-drained soils (top left) contrast with the darker vegetation of back-bay swamps, where fishing is a popular pastime.

The water is turbid in the northern half of the lagoon, the result of heavy use by watercraft and of dense urban populations on the shores.

This turbidity and other issues of environmental concern led to the creation in 2002 of the Atlas of the Lagoon (Atlante della laguna), which was set up to document environmental conditions and to track changes. 

Today, the Atlante della laguna is available online (in Italian) and provides a comprehensive collection of interpretive maps and imagery, including astronaut photographs from the International Space Station. 

A detailed view of Venice in 2007 can be viewed here. A more detailed article on the use of astronaut photography to monitor environmental change in the Lagoon of Venice is available here.

The image was taken by the Expedition 39 crew. 

It has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast, and lens artifacts have been removed.

ISS Expedition 39 Crew: Safe Arrival at Space Station After 2-Day Delay

Expedition 39, now a six-member crew, talks to family and mission officials moments after entering the space station for the first time on March 27, 2014. 

Credit: NASA TV

Three new crew members have finally made it to the International Space Station, two days later than originally planned.

A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying NASA astronaut Steve Swanson and cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev docked with the orbiting lab at 7:53 p.m. EDT (2353 GMT) Thursday (March 27), as the two spacecraft cruised over southern Brazil.

The hatch linking the two vehicles opened at 10:35 p.m. EDT Thursday, NASA officials said.

The three spaceflyers blasted off Tuesday afternoon EDT (March 25) and were slated to arrive at the station just six hours later, but the Soyuz failed to complete one of the automated burns required to pull off this "fast track" trip, forcing mission controllers to revert to a more traditional two-day chase and rendezvous.

All systems on the Soyuz now appear to be functioning normally, NASA officials said in an update Wednesday (March 26).

The arrival of Swanson, Skvortsov and Artemyev brings the space station back up to its full complement of six crew members.

The newcomers join NASA's Rick Mastracchio, Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata (ISS Commander) and cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin, rounding out the current Expedition 39 aboard the orbiting lab.

Mastracchio, Expedition 39 commander Wakata and Tyurin had had the $100 billion station all to themselves since March 10, when another Soyuz capsule ferried the previous Russian-U.S. crew back down to Earth.