OBSERVATION / 006

An island in a white sea.

Astronaut view of dark Mount Tunupa surrounded by the brilliant white mineral crust of Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni.

NASA / Johnson Space Center · ISS Expedition 12

Location: Salar de Uyuni / Bolivia
Image acquired: November 3, 2005
Platform / instrument: International Space Station / Kodak 760C
Image type: Astronaut photograph

Field notes

Dark volcanic rock meets a startling white mineral crust at the northern edge of Salar de Uyuni. Mount Tunupa is the focal point of this photograph, taken from the International Space Station above Bolivia’s high Altiplano.

The salt flat occupies a basin without a drainage outlet. Its pale surface includes halite and gypsum, while old shorelines preserve traces of changing water levels. From orbit, the meeting of volcano and salt flat becomes an unusually sharp boundary between two landscapes.

Read NASA’s full account ↗

This is dated source imagery. The homepage overlay is a graphic treatment, not a georeferenced measurement.