San Francisco’s Patchwork Streets

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A view of downtown San Francisco from the International Space Station. The city's streets are visible in the daylight, as well as the Golden Gate Bridge to the north and the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge connecting to Oakland to the east.
A period of unsettled weather brought scattered showers and thunderstorms to California’s Bay Area on May 27, 2026. That afternoon, a break in the clouds left downtown San Francisco and nearby communities beneath mostly cloud-free skies, allowing an astronaut aboard the International Space Station to take this photograph.
NASA

An astronaut aboard the International Space Station took this picture of downtown San Francisco and nearby communities on May 27, 2026. The image captures two of the region’s iconic bridges. The Golden Gate Bridge connects the northern San Francisco Peninsula with Marin County to the north, while the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge spans the bay toward Oakland to the east.  

Read more about this photograph on Earth Observatory.

Text credit: Kathryn Hansen

Image credit: NASA

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