New York, Dec 24 (IANS): If you are looking for a perfect Christmas gift, NASA's Aqua satellite has spotted it in the southern Indian Ocean.
It is a coral atoll -- a ring-shaped reef, island or chain of islands made up of coral -- in the northern Line Islands and is a territory of Australia.
When Aqua flew over Christmas Island Nov 11, 2014, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MRIS) took a visible picture of the small atoll.
The island is only 135 sq km in area - smaller than the city of Washington, DC.
The island has a tropical equatorial climate with a wet season that runs from December to April. During the island's dry season, heat and humidity are moderated by trade winds.
Although an Australian territory, Christmas Island is located 2,600 km north-west of Perth, western Australia.
The island is famous for land-dwelling red crabs which scramble to the sea each November to release eggs.