Some things just look best from up in space , which is a tad unfortunate break most of us ca n’t get up there . Luckily , the fortunate few who venture outside Earth love to rupture a few scene of their view and share them with us – and that ’s how we get to see these brand - new picture of the mysterious Richat Structure .
The images were taken aboard the International Space Station ( ISS ) on July 17 , 411 kilometers ( 255 miles ) above the Earth , look down on Mauritania in Northwest Africa . The Richat Structure , also known as the “ Eye of the Sahara ” , lies in the north of the state in the arid Adrar Plateau .
As see from the ISS , it ’s easygoing to see where the 40 - kilometer ( 25 - knot ) geological feature gets its sobriquet from ; its concentric ring really do give off the coming into court of an eye , and a large one at that .
Sadly not the eye of a giant hidden underneath the ground.Image credit:Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, NASA Johnson Space Center
But whilst it might look like the eyeball of a giant creature gaze up into distance , the social system is n’t proof thatEternalswas actually a documentary film – no outgrowth of an unborn Celestial here , give thanks you very much . That being said , the Richat Structure ’s origin was hotly debated for a foresighted time , and some theories did in fact involve a visitor not of this world .
Less “ little unripe men ” vibration and rather more rough , that visitor was think to be a great meteor , as impact effect typically leave behind similarly circular features after they smack into the Earth ’s surface .
Then get along a 2014 study that abide an whole different marriage offer – the social organisation had emerged from going on inside the Earth , not from elsewhere . Specifically , what ’s known as an intrusion of magma pushed the sway up to mould what ’s called an uplifted noggin or vaulted anticline .
Over time , the different types of rock making up the upper part of the covered stadium – igneous and aqueous – eroded at different rate , leave a serial of round ridges with a steep slope on one side and a patrician one on the other , know as cuestas .
Some masses have also proposed that the Richat social organisation is actually the site of the lost urban center ofAtlantis , but let ’s be good – magma forcing the earth above into a dome is the only substantial possibility out of those two option .
In fact , volcanic natural process is responsible for forming more than just one body part lookalike in the Sahara . Over in Chad , a mixture of towering black clinker cones and a bed of natron give off the rather uncanny show of agiant skull .
