On April 20, 2010, the worst environmental disaster in the United States happened when a British Petroleum oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico sunk to the bottom, and began an oil leak that would last for more than a month. While it seems that Top Kill has stopped the flood of oil, that doesn’t undo what has already been done.

In this video by NASA, we can clearly see the damage caused by this oil spill. The photos were taken by the MODIS instrument in the Terra and Aqua satellites. The oil spill appears in gray, which changes due to weather, water currents, and the use of oil-dispersing chemicals.

It’s really an amazing sight to see when put in this context. We see pictures on the news of the oil spill washing up on shore, but from space it looks so much more disastrous, as we can see the oil spreading out from the exact location it happened. You can check out more pictures used in the making of this time lapse video at NASA’s rapidfire website, and learn more about it on a special page they have set up as well. I don’t know what the future holds, but hopefully something like this never happens again in our lifetime, or the lifetime of our children.