If you have ever driven the Capital Beltway around Washington, DC, you will know the feeling. Mile after mile, the landscape is filled with roads, rooftops and traffic, until a patch of green suddenly breaks up the view. NASA's Earth Observatory recently put a name to that feeling with a feature called Belts of Green in the Washington Suburbs , built around a photograph an astronaut took aboard the International Space Station in July 2023 and only released to the public this year. It shows how much of that greenery has survived on the northeast side of the Beltway, around the historic Maryland city of Greenbelt. Looking straight down from orbit, a neat, square park sits right at the centre of town, with slim green strips branching outward towards homes, offices, a university campus and a cluster of government buildings, a pattern you would never clock from street level but one that is unmistakable from space. It suggests that even one of the busiest, most heavily developed corners of a major American city can still hold onto pockets of nature, provided planners leave space for them.
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