Blue mists over the Great Smoky Mountains visible from space

(CBS News) — A new satellite view of the Smoky Mountains shows the blue mist that gives the region its name.

The image, shared by NASA’s Earth Observatory, is a best-pixel image of Great Smoky Mountains National Park in east Tennessee. That means that it’s made up of the most cloud-free pixels taken from the Landsat 5 and Landsat 7 satellites between 1986 and 2013.

Gatlinburg, the town hit hard by a fast-moving wildfire in November, is visible in this view as a grayish blur tucked between ridges. East of Gatlinburg is Clingman’s Dome, the highest point in Great Smoky Mountains National Park at 6,643 feet. Clingman’s Dome is also the highest point in all of Tennessee. The body of water just right of the center of the image is Lake Fontana in North Carolina, a reservoir on the Little Tennessee River. [Photos: Stunning Views of US National Parks from Space]

(Photo from NASA Earth Observatory)

According to the National Park Service (NPS), the Smoky Mountains were formed between 310 million and 245 million years ago, when the tectonic collision that created the supercontinent Pangea rucked up the land into mountains as high as today’s Rockies. Erosion softened their edges and lowered their soaring heights. Today, the mountains are eroding at a rate of about 2 inches every thousand years, according to the NPS.