Bleeding HeartWater flows from the heart-shaped northern lobe of the Aral Sea in Central Asia, as seen in a recently released picture taken by the ESA/NASA Landsat 5 satellite. Once the world's fourth-largest inland body of water, the Aral Sea has been shrinking over the past 50 years as water has been diverted for irrigation.The whitish area surrounding the lake is a vast salt plain, now called the Aralkum Desert, left behind by the evaporating sea.
Image courtesy ESA

Space Photos This Week: Leaky "Heart," Sun Devil, More

A heart-shaped sea ebbs, plasma dances on the sun, galaxies collide, and more in the week's best space pictures.

Published November 10, 2010