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			Photo #: ISS038-E-26862 Date: Jan. 2014 Geographic Region: MAURITANIA Feature: PLATEAU EDGE, MESAS, DUNES



	Western Sahara Desert, Mauritania This astronaut photograph of infrequent cloud bands over southern Mauritania was taken from the International Space Station 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 image 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 m high, with a field of orange-colored dunes at the base (image 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 dunefields 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.

Images:	All Available Images Low-Resolution 242k
Mission:	ISS038
Roll - Frame:	E - 26862
Geographical Name:	MAURITANIA
Features:	PLATEAU EDGE, MESAS, DUNES
Center Lat x Lon:	17.2N x 11.6W
Film Exposure:		N=Normal exposure, U=Under exposed, O=Over exposed, F=out of Focus
Percentage of Cloud Cover-CLDP:	25
Camera:	N5
Camera Tilt:	52	LO=Low Oblique, HO=High Oblique, NV=Near Vertical
Camera Focal Length:	180
Nadir to Photo Center Direction:	W	The direction from the nadir to the center point, N=North, S=South, E=East, W=West
Stereo?:		Y=Yes there is an adjacent picture of the same area, N=No there isn't
Orbit Number:
Date:	20140108	YYYYMMDD
Time:	154116	GMT HHMMSS
Nadir Lat:	16.9N	Latitude of suborbital point of spacecraft
Nadir Lon:	6.9W	Longitude of suborbital point of spacecraft
Sun Azimuth:	231	Clockwise angle in degrees from north to the sun measured at the nadir point
Space Craft Altitude:	225	nautical miles
Sun Elevation:	30	Angle in degrees between the horizon and the sun, measured at the nadir point
Land Views:	DESERT, DUNE, ESCARPMENT, PLATEAU
Water Views:
Atmosphere Views:
Man Made Views:
City Views:

Photo is not associated with any sequences

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