While cruising luxuriously above the Sahara desert ( around 400 kilometers ) , an astronaut aboard the International Space Station ( ISS ) spotted a giant ghostly skull staring back at them . as luck would have it , it is n’t the bones of anancient giant , nor the entrance to thelair of an evil genus , but a strangely shaped volcanic volcanic crater .
The epitome was share byNASA Earth Observatoryon Halloween , but it was select on February 12 , 2023 , by an ISS spaceman just using a Nikon D5 digital television camera .
It demonstrate the Trou au Natron in northern Chad , a 1,000 - metre ( 3,300 - foot ) deep volcanic caldera with an irregular diameter of 6 to 8 km ( 4 to 5 Admiralty mile ) Most of the gaping pit ’s base is caked in a layer of a white salt known as natron , which is a mixture of atomic number 11 carbonate , Na hydrogen carbonate , sodium chloride , and Na sulfate . The dim orchestra pit that make up the eyes and nose are actually towering clinker cones that have make up around volcanic vents .
Trou au Natron isn’t so spooky when viewed from the ground.Image credit:Gerhard Holub /Wikimedia Commons(CC BY-SA 4.0)
Trou au Natron is set up among the Tibesti Mountains , the highest mountain massif in the Sahara at an elevation of 2,450 m ( 8,040 feet ) . Considered to be one of the most distant and isolated parts of the planet , these mountains are an eerie and cryptic place .
Despite its rough environment , the Tibesti Mountains harbor some interesting biodiversity , including golden jackals , fennec foxes , gazelle , African wildcats , and various wench species . It ’s also the transmissible homeland of the semi - mobile Toubou the great unwashed .
Trou au Natron is not deeply understood by scientist because it ’s so far - flung , not to mention surrounded by a dangerous areawracked by political wildness . No one knows how or whenTrou au Natronwas formed . The volcano is out , although is not known when it last break open . It is known , however , that it was a abstruse glacial lake some 14,000 years ago .
