A Sand Sea

Skeleton Coast & the Sand Sea, Namibia (credit: NASA/ISS)

The Sand Sea was photographed from the International Space Station (ISS). The vantage point of the space station makes for perfect landscape-scale observations. The spectacular linear and rectangular dunes of the sand-covered region are produced by fierce winds blowing off the South Atlantic Ocean and hitting Namibia's hyper-arid Skeleton Coast.

According to NASA: the Namib Desert is very old and dates from when the cold, desert forming, Benguela Current began flowing ~37 million years ago. The North-oriented dunes have shifted with drier climates and stronger winds, to cover but not remove earlier dunes making rectangular dune networks seen today by the International Space Station.

A small aircraft provides a lower elevation perspective of the stunning dunes along this remote coastline in close-up detail. WHB

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