Blog: Antelope Valley abloom
Near the western tip of the Mojave Desert and a few miles west of NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center, fields of wildflowers painted the landscape yellow in spring 2024. On April 9, the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on the Landsat 8 satellite acquired this image of fields of yellow wildflowers blanketing Antelope Valley amid solar and wind farms. The day after the image was acquired, the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve reported that wildflowers were “popping,” but the region’s famous poppies were not. Rangers at the reserve said they also saw very few small poppy plants maturing, suggesting an impressive poppy bloom is unlikely in the coming weeks.