Emi Koussi in the Sahara Desert
Today’s Image of the Day comes from the NASA Earth Observatory and features a look at Emi Koussi, one of the largest volcanoes in the Sahara Desert.
Surrounding the dark central crater, which measures 7.5 to 9.5 miles wide, are lava slopes from prior eruptions. The cone of the volcano rises 7,500 feet, high enough to deflect strong winds. Emi Koussi in the Sahara Desert
This image was captured by an astronaut on board the International Space Station.
The desert comprises much of North Africa, excluding the fertile region on the Mediterranean Sea coast, the Atlas Mountains of the Maghreb, and the Nile Valley in Egypt and Sudan. It stretches from the Red Sea in the east and the Mediterranean in the north to the Atlantic Ocean in the west, where the landscape gradually changes from desert to coastal plains. To the south, it is bounded by the Sahel, a belt of semi-arid tropical savanna around the Niger River valley and the Sudan Region of Sub-Saharan Africa. The Sahara can be divided into several regions, including the western Sahara, the central Ahaggar Mountains, the Tibesti Mountains, the Aïr Mountains, the Ténéré desert, and the Libyan Desert.
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By Rory Arnold, Earth.com Staff Writer
Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory
