Harry is a U.K.-based senior staff writer at Live Science. He studied marine biology at the University of Exeter before training to become a journalist. He covers a wide range of topics including space exploration, planetary science, space weather, climate change, animal behavior and paleontology.
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Sign up for our skywatching newsletter and explore the universe with us!This intriguing astronaut photo shows off the contrasting colors of five ephemeral lakes that emerged around the edges of a giant salt pan after a major flooding event in southwest Africa.— Africa's largest salt flat, or mineral pan, which covers around 1,800 square miles in northern Namibia. The name Etosha roughly translates to"Great White Place" in an Indigenous Namibian language, and the ghostly expanse is located roughly 250 miles from the country's capital, Windhoek. The satellite photo shows a snaking pair of ephemeral rivers that drain into the Etosha Pan: the Ekuma River and the Oshigambo River . These winding waterways are surrounded by roughly a dozen bowl-like depressions that occasionally fill with water when the rivers sporadically flood their banks.Submerged sandbanks shine like underwater auroras in astronaut's view of the Bahamas Hidden beauty of Zimbabwe's 2.5 billion-year-old 'geological marvel' revealed in striking astronaut photo When the image was taken, both rivers had recently flooded due to heavy rains in the region, causing around half of these pale depressions to fill with water. The rest of the lakes remained empty and are the same pale hue as the rest of the Etosha Pan. The contrasting colors of the newly filled lakes — which include yellow, green, brown, red and pink — are likely the result of different species of algae that bloomed within their shallow waters, according toThe Etosha Pan likely formed around 10 million years ago and has been a freshwater lake for most of that time. But around 16,000 years ago, toward the end of the last ice age, tectonic activity diverted one of the major rivers that fed into the lake, causing it to dry out. As the water slowly evaporated, it left behind a thick layer of minerals, which covered the lake bed. Most of the pan's surface is covered by honeycomb-like hexagonal structures that are common among salt flats across the globe.Get the world’s most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox.Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors During flooding events, a thin layer of water can briefly lie within the pan, transforming it back into a shallow lake. However, this rarely happens, even when its rivers flood.Despite the Etosha Pan's extreme dryness and salinity, which make it largely inhospitable to life, the area surrounding the ancient lake is covered with rich grassland and woodland. This diverse ecosystem is protected as part of Etosha National Park, which covers 8,900 square miles , and is home to a variety of animals, including Thousands of flamingos descend on the Etosha Pan each year during their breeding season. This photo shows some of them enjoying a flooded section of the salt flats in 2013.The salt flats themselves are also an important breeding site for flamingos, and up to 1 million of the pink birds congregate there at a time, according to the If you look closely at the astronaut photo, you can see the park's northern fence running across the image from left to right — just above the green lake and bisecting the red and pink lakes. This 10-foot-tall barrier stops the park's animals from wandering outside the woodlands where they could be targeted by poachers, according to the Earth Observatory.A 2023 satellite photo shows three closely grouped lakes in Ethiopia's Great Rift Valley. They have distinctly different hues thanks to a combination of biological and geological factors.A 2014 satellite photo of the Sivash region shows off the kaleidoscopic colors of a series of shallow, hypersaline lagoons — each filled with a different kind of algae.A 2024 astronaut photo shows off the striking contrasting colors of Iraq's Razazah Lake, which is surrounded by a host of strange"crop circles." Harry is a U.K.-based senior staff writer at Live Science. He studied marine biology at the University of Exeter before training to become a journalist. He covers a wide range of topics including space exploration, planetary science, space weather, climate change, animal behavior and paleontology. His recent work on the solar maximum won"best space submission" at the and was shortlisted in the"top scoop" category at the NCTJ Awards for Excellence in 2023. He also writes Live Science's weeklyRivers & OceansSpaceRivers & OceansThe world is being held hostage by its reliance on oil. 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