Butaritari
- ISS002-E-7911
- 24 June 2001
- 21:56 UTC
An atoll of the North Gilbert Islands, Butaritari (sometimes referred to as Makin) is located a few kilometers south of its nearest neighbour — the island of Makin. The atoll is one of the largest to be found in the Gilbert Islands, being around 30 km in length (east to west) and 15 km across (north to south).
The atoll consists of an almost continuous and narrow (averaging 350 m across) strip of land that occupies the southeastern side of the formation, a broken series of smaller islets on the western side and a few small islets on the eastern side. The northern side is composed largely of submerged reef and broad reef flats that are broken by a number of channels.
image: earth sciences and image analysis laboratory, nasa johnson space center