ISS-38 Western Sahara Desert.jpg
NASA
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ISS 38 Western Sahara Desert, The Western Sahara Desert is featured in this image photographed by an Expedition 38 crew member on the International Space Station.
* The infrequent cloud bands over southern Mauritania were photographed with an oblique look angle so that the dark cloud shadows are also a prominent part of the view. Beneath the cloud the Aouker plateau of dark sedimentary rocks appears as a ragged, near-vertical escarpment at top right. Isolated remnants of the plateau appear as dark mesas (flat-topped hills) across the top and near the center of the image. The escarpment is about 250 meters high, with a field of orange-colored dunes at the base (upper right).
* Prevailing winds in this part of the Sahara Desert blow from the northeast. The wavy dunes are aligned transverse to these winds. The sand that makes the dunes is blown in from a zone immediately upwind (just out of the bottom of the image) where dry river beds and dry lakes provide large quantities of mobile sand for the wind to transport. This pattern is typical in the western Sahara Desert, where plateau surfaces are mostly dune free and dune fields are located in the surrounding lowlands where the larger rivers deposit quantities of sandy sediment on the few occasions when they flow-sometimes only once in decades.
commons
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ISS 38 Western Sahara Desert, ISS Expedition 38 Crew Earth Observations, Satellite pictures of Western Sahara
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国際宇宙ステーションの38次長期滞在クルーによって撮影された画像には、西サハラ砂漠の ISS 38 西サハラ砂漠が写っている。*モーリタニア南部のまれな雲の帯は、暗い雲の影が目立つように、斜めの角度で撮影された。暗い堆積岩のオーカー高原は、雲に面して右側の先端に、険しいほぼ垂直な崖として現れる。台地の孤立した残骸は、頂上と画像の中央付近に暗色のメサ(平らな頂上丘)として現れる。高さ約250メートル、台座に色の砂丘が広がる。※サハラ砂漠のこの部分では北東から吹く風を予報する。波状の砂丘は、これらの風に横向きに並んでいる。砂丘を作る砂は、風が吹くゾーンから吹き込まれる。このパターンはサハラ砂漠西部で典型的なもので、高原の表面はほとんど砂質で砂丘の畑が周囲の低地にあり、大きな川がわずか数十年に一度だけ流れ出すときに砂質堆積物を堆積させている。
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ISS 38 西サハラ砂漠、第38次ISS滞在クルー地球観測、西サハラの衛星写真
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western sahara blow-dry prevailing wind sand patterns sahara infrequent infrequently upwind prevailing blow out