File:Tasmania (MODIS 2019-01-02).jpg

English: On December 24, 2018, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s Aqua satellite flew over the Bass Strait and acquired a true-color image that includes southeastern Australia and Tasmania.

The island state of Tasmania lies about 124 miles (200 km) off the southeastern coast of Australia, separated from the mainland by the Bass Strait. Human settlement of the island extends back in time likely tens of thousands of years to the first known inhabitants, the Aborigines. The Dutch visited the island and the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman named it Van Diemans Land in 1642. In 1803 Tasmania was settled by the British as a penal colony in 1803.

The sunny summer image shows the verdant greens of the rainforests of the west, while the lighter greens predominate in the agricultural regions. Tasmania was likely connected to Australia until about 10,000 years ago, when rising sea levels at the end of the last Ice Age cut if off from the continent—but not before a wide variety of species travelled to Tasmania. The wide range of habitats encouraged biodiversity, which is recognized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) when it named more than 20 percent of Tasmania as a World Heritage Area, helping to protect such species as wombats, echidna, platypus, and the Tasmanian devil.