Astronaut shows vein-like patterns in world's largest Amazon River

Astronaut Don Pettit has once again turned his lens toward Earth, this time capturing a mesmerising view of the Amazon River basin from space.

While aboard his mission, Pettit photographed the world's largest river system shimmering under the effect of sunglint, sunlight reflecting directly off its surface, creating what he described as a "glowing fractal pattern" spread across the rainforest landscape.

In the image, shared from orbit, the Amazon appears almost like a living organism, its vast network of tributaries branching out like veins across tens of kilometres of floodplain. The main river snakes toward the Atlantic Ocean, accompanied by winding secondary channels, oxbow lakes, and floodplain lakes that glisten in the stark black-and-white rendering.

The sunglint effect turns th