Seen from Space: the Gulf Oil Spill

As the BP oil spill enters its 63rd day, word comes that the worst-case scenario of the amount of oil gushing from the damaged well, has climbed to 100,000 barrels a day. Initially, BP put the daily tally from the Deepwater Horizon at around 1,000 barrels.

Journalists have reported on the spread of the spill in print and video. As the anecdotal evidence of a mounting environmental disaster accumulates, the challenge of quantifying the enormity of the problem is made that much harder by the piecemeal nature of this developing story.

But now, several hundred miles above the earth, NASA satellites have been tracking the spread oil slick as it approaches the Louisiana coast and you can find many of those eye-opening photographs in our image gallery below.