Earth is Strange

Earth is a phenomenal place and so far we can say that no other place like it exists anywhere. On our planet we have places that are extremely hot, places that are extremely cold and everything in between. There are places with various types of animals living with each other, and places with mass amounts of vegetation. Places where the populations of humans are in the billions to places where it is in the low thousands. Variety is definitely a good word to use when describing our globe, and a recent release of photographs has shown us just how strange our world is.

The first photograph features the Atacama Desert in South America. This Desert has a slightly red color surface and is extremely dry, so much that NASA has used it on various occasions to test Mars rovers. Then we have the Red Beach of Panjin located in China; this beach is covered in red weeds similar to those described on Mars in the book “War of the Worlds,” by H.G. Wells. Another photo features an old watchtower on the Chinese Silk Road, odd enough to look like it’s straight out of a Star Wars movie. We also have the glowworm caves in New Zealand which looks like another galaxy, while the Naica Mine in Mexico looks like a world of large diamonds.

In Pamukkale, Turkey, there are beautiful icy pools of water that look so perfect they could be man-made. While the Marble Caves of Chile Chico in Patagonia and the Ice caves in Mendenhall Glacier, Alaska feature out of this world shades of blue. For those who prefer pink, the Lake Retba in Senegal features a pretty shade of pink due to salt production. A photo taken at the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia shows a man standing on clouds, while the clouds are above him as well. This is because when it rains in this area, the white salt flat acts like a mirror. In Ethiopia there is a volcano known as the Dallol that has high amounts of sulfur and iron which causes all kinds of pools of bright colors, making it look like an alien world along with the island of Socotra and the Riisitunturi National Park in Finland where the vegetation resembles alien life forms. 

Even here in the United States we have an image that shows a red sanded desert with an odd looking house that makes it seems as if it is straight from Mars itself. However, it is actually a training ground in Utah that is used by the Mars Society. All of these photographs show us various features in our world that remind us how strange and amazing Earth is. At times it can be easy to get lost in our normal routines of school every week day or work 40 hours a week, paying bills, shopping for groceries, feeding our pets, doing laundry, etc. But if we could take some time out of our busy weeks and do some exploring, we may find places that are just as odd looking as those in this collection.