Sochi, Russia

The Black Sea resort of Sochi, Russia, is the warmest city ever to host the Winter Olympic Games, which open on February 7, 2014, and run through February 23. This north-looking image, acquired on January 4, 2014, by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) instrument on NASA's Terra spacecraft, shows the Sochi Olympic Park Coastal Cluster -- the circular area on the shoreline in the bottom center of the image -- which was built for Olympic indoor sports. Even curling has its own arena alongside multiple arenas for hockey and skating. The Olympic alpine events will take place at the Mountain Cluster, located in a snow-capped valley at the top right of the image. Sochi itself, a city of about 400,000, is not visible in the picture. It's farther west (left) along the coast, past the airport at bottom left.

In the image, red indicates vegetation, white is snow, buildings are gray and the ocean is dark blue. The area imaged is about 15 miles (24 kilometers) from west to east (left to right) at the coastline and 25 miles (41 kilometers) from front to back. Height is exaggerated 1.5 times. The image was created from the ASTER visible and near-infrared bands, draped over ASTER-derived digital elevation data.

The 2014 Winter Olympic ski runs may be rated double black diamond, but they're not quite as steep as they appear in this image of the skiing and snowboarding sites for the Sochi Winter Olympic Games, acquired on January 4, 2014, by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) instrument on NASA's Terra spacecraft. Rosa Khutar ski resort near Sochi, Russia, is in the valley at center, and the runs are visible on the shadowed slopes on the left-hand side of the valley. Height has been exaggerated 1.5 times to bring out topographic details. The games, which begin on February 7 and continue for 17 days, feature six new skiing and boarding events plus the return of the legendary Jamaican bobsled team to the Winter Games for the first time since 2002.

In this southwest-looking image, red indicates vegetation, white is snow, and the resort site appears in gray. The area imaged is about 11 miles (18 kilometers) across in the foreground and 20 miles (32 kilometers) from front to back. The image was created from the ASTER visible and near-infrared bands, draped over ASTER-derived digital elevation data.

Image credits: NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team (top and bottom)

Note: For more information, see NASA Satellite Eyes Sochi Olympic Sites. Also, Proba-V’s Olympic View.