Jakarta, IO – The United States Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) released an intriguing image of a glowing skull-like impression visible from space in the heart of a giant volcanic hole in Chad.
The image was taken on February 12 by an astronaut on the International Space Station (ISS), when the spacecraft passed over the Tibesti Massif, a mountain range that stretches across the center of the Sahara Desert through Chad and Libya. It was released on October 31 by NASA’s Earth Observatory, per Detikcom, Friday (3/11).
This skull-like feature is located at the base of Trou au Natron, also known as Doon Orei, a 1,000 meter wide caldera or volcanic crater believed to be formed as a result of massive volcanic eruption many years ago.
This geological indentation is located just south of Tarso Toussidé, a larger volcanic feature that is home to a potentially active stratovolcano.
The white color of the skull’s mouth, nose and left cheek is produced by natron, a natural salt mixture of sodium carbonate decahydrate, sodium bicarbonate, sodium chloride and sodium sulfate.
The eye area and nostrils are cinder cones, steep cone-shaped hills built around volcanic vents that rise above the remaining caldera floor. Meanwhile, the darker area to the left of the face is a shadow cast by the high crater rim, which helps give the skull its distinctive shape.
Trou au Natron is currently barren and lifeless, but experts believe it was a glacial lake that thrived until around 14,000 years ago.
In the 1960s, researchers discovered fossilized sea snails and plankton beneath the bottom of a natron-covered pit, according to the Earth Observatory. And in 2015, a follow-up expedition discovered algae fossils that were 120,000 years old.
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Although it is at least as old as the fossils in the dried lake, Trou au Natron is actually one of the youngest volcanic features in the Tibesti Massif. The surrounding volcanoes are likely much older.
This is not the first time a skull-shaped object has been seen from space. In 2016, weather satellite imagery captured the phenomenon of Hurricane Matthew, a Category 5 tropical storm that killed more than 600 people across the Caribbean. From space, the storm looks like a spinning vortex and its shape resembles a face with bright red eyes and scary teeth. (rr)