Oil Rig BurnsThis story is part of a special series that explores energy issues. For more, visit The Great Energy Challenge.Published May 4, 2010—Seen from space by a NASA satellite, smoke fans out (bottom center) from the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon oil rig, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) from Venice, Louisiana (map), on April 21. A day later, the oil rig would be on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico, and an ominous sheen would begin spreading toward the U.S. Gulf Coast.

(See closer-in aerial pictures of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.)

For reasons still unknown, the floating oil rig exploded on April 20, killing 11 workers and injuring 17 others. (See "Rig Explosion Shows Risks in Key Oil Frontier.")

When the burning rig sank on April 22, so too did the pipe connecting the rig to the 5,000-foot-deep (1,500-meter-deep) oil well. The same day a thin, iridescent, five-mile-long (eight-kilometer-long) oil slick appeared.

That day U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. Mary Landry told reporters that the oil sheen "probably is residual from the fire and the activity that was going on on this rig before it sank below the surface."—With reporting by Craig Guillot in New Orleans and Marianne Lavelle

Image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA