Earth from Space - Image Description

STS61A-200-0126 Central Arizona, U.S.A. November 1985
Haze and clouds reduce the amount of detail in this southeast-looking photograph of Central Arizona; however, the photograph provides an outstanding synoptic view of the mountainous region from the plateaus south of Grand Canyon to beyond Tucson (near the top of the photograph). Metropolitan Phoenix, Theodore Roosevelt Lake and Mogollon Rim to its north and northeast, open-pit mining areas near Globe and Tucson, the Little Colorado River, and highly reflective Wilcox Dry Lake can be identified. Most of the darker, more densely vegetated plateaus and forested mountains north of Phoenix fall within the Coconino and Prescott National Forests.

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