Nope, this isn’t Mars. This spectacular red and orange landscape is part of our home planet. 🌍 Sand dunes, ancient rocks, a solar power plant, and the 𝑶𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒆 𝑹𝒊𝒗𝒆𝒓 stand out in this image of the southern 𝑲𝒂𝒍𝒂𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒊 𝑫𝒆𝒔𝒆𝒓𝒕 taken by a camera system on the International Space Station. The dark line of South Africa’s largest river, the 𝑶𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒆, winds across farm-covered floodplains toward the Atlantic Ocean. Populations are small in this desert region. The small farming town of 𝑮𝒓𝒐𝒃𝒍𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒉𝒐𝒐𝒑 is barely visible compared to the local main roads, which show up as white lines etched across the landscape. The strong orange color in this image is mostly due to geologically young dunes (only a few million years old) in what is known locally as the 𝑫𝒖𝒊𝒏𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒍𝒅 (dune country). Poking up through the sands are sinuous hills made up of very ancient, dark-toned rocks. These rocks were folded and faulted around one billion years ago by mountain-building forces similar to those currently raising the 𝑯𝒊𝒎𝒂𝒍𝒂𝒚𝒂𝒔. The ancient mountains were later planed off by erosion over millions of years to form the dune-covered plains and low hills we see today. Alongside one of the main roads lies a small, bright rectangular shape: This is the 𝑩𝒐𝒌𝒑𝒐𝒐𝒓𝒕 𝒔𝒐𝒍𝒂𝒓 𝒑𝒐𝒘𝒆𝒓 𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒕. It was constructed specifically to take advantage of the high number of sunny days in the 𝑲𝒂𝒍𝒂𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒊 𝑫𝒆𝒔𝒆𝒓𝒕. The plant includes nearly 240,000 mirrors covering 0.65 square kilometers (about 0.25 square miles). Unlike the photovoltaic solar panels at many traditional installations, this power plant uses mirrors to focus the Sun’s energy on a large salt-filled storage tank (too small to see in this image). The focused sunlight melts the salt, which has a high heat storage capacity. This heat in turn drives steam turbines that can generate power long after sunset. This renewable-energy plant came online in 2015. Cradit : @nasaearth #nasa #earth #africa #kalahari #bokpoort #dogelien #follow_us #instagram https://www.instagram.com/p/CRfkdEwFdUc/?utm_medium=tumblr
