Dune Patterns, Namib Desert, Namibia Astronaut photograph
ISS011-E-9756 was acquired June 28, 2005, with a Kodak 760C
digital camera with a 800 mm lens, and is provided by the ISS
Crew Earth Observations experiment and the Image Science &
Analysis Group, Johnson Space Center. The International Space
Station Program supports the laboratory to help astronauts take
pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to
scientists and the public, and to make those images freely
available on the Internet. Additional images taken by astronauts
and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA/JSC Gateway to
Astronaut Photography of Earth. This detailed view of the remote
Conception Bay sector of the Namibian coastline shows breakers
and a strand plain on the left and complex dunes of the Namib
dune sea on the right. A strand plain is a series of dunes,
usually associated with and parallel to a beach, sometimes
containing small creeks or lakes. The complexity and regularity
of dune patterns in the dune sea of the Namib Dese