A Siberian Snowman in Billings — NASA Science
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Image of the Day for December 17, 2025
Winds, waves, and ice near a remote town on the Chukchi Peninsula have carved a chain of coastal inshore lagoons into a shape that resembles a winter icon.
NASA Earth Observatory
Dec 17, 2025
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Icons of winter can appear in the most unlikely places. In this striking example, a sequence of oval lagoons in a distant part of Siberia forms the silhouette of a towering snowman when viewed from above.
This image, centered on the remote village of Billings and the nearby Cape Billings on Russia’s Chukchi Peninsula, was captured by the OLI (Operational Land Imager) aboard Landsat 8 on June 16, 2025. Established in the 1930s as a port and supply point for the Soviet Union, the village sits on a narrow sandspit that divides the Arctic Ocean from a linked series of coastal lagoons.
The elongated lagoons are frozen and bordered by sea ice. Even in June, one of Billings’s warmer months, ice cover remains common. Mean daily minimum temperatures in June average just minus 0.6 degrees Celsius (30.9 degrees Fahrenheit), according to meteorological data.
While the snowman shape may look engineered, it is a natural product of northern geological processes. The ground in this region stays frozen most of the year and features spear-shaped ice wedges buried beneath the surface. Summer melting causes the overlying soil to slump, creating shallow depressions that fill with meltwater and form thermokarst lakes. Once established, prevailing winds and waves likely elongated and aligned the lakes into the forms seen in the image. The thin ridges between the lakes may mark the edges of different ice wedges beneath the surface.
The notion of human snowmen dates back to the Middle Ages, as noted in The History of the Snowman. While the classic three-sphere snowman is common, many regions favor other designs. In Japan, for example, snowmen typically have two segments and rarely feature arms. This five-lake, snowman-shaped chain spans roughly 22 kilometers (about 14 miles) from end to end, making it vastly longer than the world’s tallest human snowman ever recorded.
Snowmen aren’t the only winter symbols tied to this remote landscape. Early Arctic expeditions relied heavily on reindeer for transport. Among these ventures was a survey voyage led by Commodore Joseph Billings, a British-born naval officer who served in the Russian navy and sought a Northeast Passage between 1790 and 1794.
Although the expedition’s hundred-plus members fell short of reaching Cape Billings, they mapped much of the Chukchi Peninsula and helped confirm that Asia and North America are separated by a strait. In winter, when ships faced heavy ice, the explorers moved ashore and conducted surveys using reindeer-drawn sleds. Winters offered easier travel conditions, as the peninsula’s rivers and lakes were solid enough to traverse, unlike the summer landscapes that turn to muddy bogs.
Indigenous Chukchi people living on the peninsula at the time routinely used reindeer to haul people and cargo. A pair of reindeer can carry hundreds of pounds for several hours daily. Beyond their endurance in extreme cold, reindeer feed themselves by digging through snow and grazing on lichens, a capability that sled dogs or horses do not share.
Historical records indicate that the Billings expedition worked with Chukchi people to manage and care for the reindeer, with some accounts noting dozens of animals at times. While reindeer primarily hauled sleds, the Chukchi likely rode them as well.
Non-Chukchi expedition members reportedly tried riding reindeer, though with mixed results. Billings’ secretary and translator, Martin Sauer, described riding a saddle without stirrups or a bridle and nearly 20 falls after about three hours of travel. He also noted that the saddle, at first, caused remarkable thigh pain.
NASA Earth Observatory image by Michala Garrison, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Story by Adam Voiland.
Sources and further reading:
- Alekseev, A. I. (1966). Joseph Billings. The Geographical Journal.
- Arctic Portal: Chukchi reindeer herding.
- Astronomy (2019). Ultima Thule as a cosmic snowman in spacecraft images.
- Chlenov, M. (2006). The Uelenski Language and native languages of the Chukchi Peninsula. Alaska Journal of Anthropology.
- Dokuchaev, A., et al. (2022). First scientific expeditions to the Bering Strait and Russian America.
- Eckstein, B. (2007). The history of the snowman. Internet Archive.
- Hobden, H. Yakutia in the 18th century — Part Two.
- Klokov, K. B. (2023). Reindeer pastoralism in northern Russia. Pastoralism.
- Krylenko, V. (2017). Estuaries and Lagoons of the Russian Arctic Seas. Estuaries of the World.
- NASA (2012). Views of the Snowman.
- Obscure Histories (2022). The Snowman: A brief history of a winter entertainment.
- Sauer, M. (1802). An account of a geographical and astronomical expedition to northern Russia. Archive.
- Zonn, I., et al. (2016). Shores of the Chukchi Sea. The Eastern Arctic Seas Encyclopedia.
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