File:Sunglint on the Mississippi River (MODIS).jpg

English: In this striking image, the “Muddy Mississippi” looked more like the “Shiny Mississippi” as it flowed southward across the United States. The true-color image, showing the Mississippi River in sunglint, was acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite, on May 17, 2023.

Sunglint is an optical phenomenon that occurs when sunlight reflects off the surface of water at the same angle that a satellite sensor views it. The result is a mirror-like reflection of sunlight off the water and back at the sensor, creating a silver sheen. Here, sunglint not only causes the main channel of the Mississippi River to shine, but also highlights many meanders, including some that have separated enough from the main channel to become lakes.

The Mississippi River has meandered over hundreds and thousands of years, causing the channels to migrate across the floodplains, often in sweeping arcs. In more recent times, changes in the position of the channels after U.S. state borders were established—and before the river’s active meandering was controlled by the Army Corps of Engineers—meant that some farms, towns, and rural lands, and even state lines, occasionally switched to the opposite banks of the river.

For instance, in 1783, the border between Tennessee and Arkansas originally was drawn at the center of the main navigable channel of the Mississippi River, allowing each state fully half of the river all along its course. In 1918, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that these boundary lines remained fixed, regardless of natural forces that may change the course of the river. As a result, the boundary line runs through the center of The Chute, a remnant lake of the old main channel, near Fort Pillow State Historic Park, Tennessee, while the new main channel lies more than a mile to the west, with a patch of Arkansas between the two.