SPACEPHOTOS

Only occasionally are country boundaries easily observed from space. In this near-vertical photograph, the straight border between Angola (north) and Namibia (south) is clear. The major cause of this marked difference in terrain is that the two countries have different livestock grazing practices. Obviously, Namibia has allowed more grazing to take place; hence, there is less vegetation, resulting in highly reflective soil, which is recorded in this photograph. The large, relatively rectangular, and highly reflective landform in the southeastern part of the photograph is a dry lakebed known as the Etosha [salt] Pan. Notice that several highly reflective dry lakes lie to the northwest of the much larger Etosha Pan dry lake. In this semiarid environment, only on rare occasions is there any evidence of moisture or surface runoff into these dry lakebeds.