Massive Oil Spill Hits US Gulf Coast

The MODIS image on the Terra satellite captured a wide-view natural-color image of the oil slick (outlined in white) just off the Louisiana coast, 29 Apr 2010. (NASA Image)

A boat makes its way through crude oil that has leaked from the Deepwater Horizon wellhead in the Gulf of Mexico near New Orleans, Louisiana, 28 Apr 2010. (AFP Image)

A clean-up worker laying booms beside a fragile wetlands near the town of Venice that is in the path of the oil spill that is creeping towards the coast of Louisiana, 29 Apr 2010. (AFP Image)

An oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico comes within 20 miles of barrier islands and beaches in Louisiana, 27 Apr 2010. (NASA Image)

Birds at the Breton Island sanctuary, that is protected by oil boom barriers to stop the spread of oil from the BP Deepwater Horizon platform disaster, off the coast of Louisiana, 30 Apr 2010. (AFP Image)

This US Coast Guard image released on April 22, 2010 shows fire boat response crews as they battle the blazing remnants of the off shore oil rig Deepwater Horizon, 21 Apr 2010. (AFP Image)

NASA's Aqua satellite captured this image of the Gulf of Mexico, 25 Apr 2010. With the Mississippi Delta on the left, the silvery swirling oil slick from explosion. (NASA Image)

An estimated 42,000 gallons of oil per day were leaking from an oil well in the Gulf of Mexico in late April, following an explosion at an offshore drilling rig. (NASA Image)

A damaged oil well may be leaking five times more oil into the Gulf of Mexico than officials first estimated, 28 Apr 2010. (NASA Image)