Earth from Space - Image Description

STS068-173-138 Sonoran Desert, Arizona, U.S.A. October 1994
The southwest corner of the sparsely vegetated Sonoran Desert is captured in this low-oblique, northeast-looking photograph. The only diversity in an otherwise arid region is created by the irrigated-field patterns along floodplains of the Colorado River (south-flowing) and the Gila River (southwest-flowing). Several circular center-point irrigation fields are visible south of Yuma (bottom center of the photograph). The Gila Mountains east of Yuma and several other ranges--the Chocolate, Kofa, and Eagle Tail Mountains--can be seen between the Colorado and Gila Rivers. The linear Sand Hills are discernible across the bottom of the photograph.

This service is provided by the International Space Station program and the JSC Earth Science & Remote Sensing Unit, ARES Division, Exploration Integration Science Directorate.