Return to Earth From Space Home
Earth from Space logo Image Information Earth from Space logo

Display a Screen Layout for Printing

IMAGE: gray corner       IMAGE: gray corner
  Image: Geographic Location Direction Photo #: ISS043-E-93251 Date: Apr. 2015
Geographic Region: CHINA
Feature: HIMALAYAS UNDER SNOW

Ordering information for space photography
 
IMAGE: gray corner     IMAGE: gray corner

Image: gray corner     Image: gray corner
  View Low-Resolution Image  
  Rivers and snow in the Himalayas

This oblique image was taken from the International Space Station as astronauts flew over the Himalaya range in China near the Indian border. The view shows one of the main ranges of the Himalaya Mountains across the bottom of the image, where peaks cast strong evening shadows against the snow. The peaks reach great altitudes (5200 m, 17,000 feet), with those just outside the lower margin reaching high enough (6500 m, 21,325 feet) to host glaciers.

Rivers have eroded rock from these high mountains and deposited the sediment as broad alluvial fan surfaces (across the middle of the image). The snow cover shows these strikingly smooth surfaces. A trellis-work of gullies cuts into these surfaces casting sinuous shadows. The largest river in the view has cut a 500 m-deep (1650 foot) canyon through the fans (image left).

Although the rivers in the view drain northward from the Himalayas, they ultimately flow back south through the mountain ranges as the Sutlej River (outside the image)--in one of the largest canyons in the world--before entering the lowlands of Pakistan and finally reaching the Arabian Sea.
 
Image: gray corner     Image: gray corner

Images: All Available Images Low-Resolution 141k
Mission: ISS043  
Roll - Frame: E - 93251
Geographical Name: CHINA  
Features: HIMALAYAS UNDER SNOW  
Center Lat x Lon: 31.2N x 79.8E
Film Exposure:   N=Normal exposure, U=Under exposed, O=Over exposed, F=out of Focus
Percentage of Cloud Cover-CLDP: 10
 
Camera: N6
 
Camera Tilt: 39   LO=Low Oblique, HO=High Oblique, NV=Near Vertical
Camera Focal Length: 500  
 
Nadir to Photo Center Direction: NE   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: 20150408   YYYYMMDD
Time: 121251   GMT HHMMSS
Nadir Lat: 28.8N  
Latitude of suborbital point of spacecraft
Nadir Lon: 78.1E  
Longitude of suborbital point of spacecraft
Sun Azimuth: 272   Clockwise angle in degrees from north to the sun measured at the nadir point
Space Craft Altitude: 216   nautical miles
Sun Elevation: 11   Angle in degrees between the horizon and the sun, measured at the nadir point
Land Views: ALLUVIAL FAN, MOUNTAIN, RANGE  
Water Views: RIVER  
Atmosphere Views:  
Man Made Views:  
City Views:  
Photo is not associated with any sequences


NASA
Home Page
JSC
Home Page
JSC Digital
Image Collection
Earth Science &
Remote Sensing

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