A photograph taken by astronauts reveals a striking scene above the summit of a giant volcano in the heart of the Sahara Desert.
The image shows a white layer of salt resembling snow, while deep grooves on the mountain slopes conceal permanent watercourses, despite the extreme aridity that characterizes the region.
Emi Koussi is located in northern Chad, within the Tibesti mountain range that extends across the border with Libya. Reaching an altitude of 3,415 meters above sea level, it is the highest peak in the Sahara Desert, and its volcanic structure has a diameter of approximately 69 kilometers.
Emikusi is classified as a dormant volcano, with no historical records of eruptions, but its slopes, covered with ancient lava flows, reveal extensive volcanic activity in the past. Some experts believe these rocks are around two million years old.
The volcano's summit contains a series of massive craters that extend for about 15 kilometers. In its southern part lies the Era Kohor crater, whose floor contains a shiny layer of salt about one kilometer in diameter.
These deposits are composed of natron, a naturally occurring mixture of sodium salts and other compounds. Scientists believe they formed after a salt lake that once filled the crater evaporated, leaving behind the white salt layer that is clearly visible from space.
The region is not unique in this phenomenon, as there is another crater known as Trou ou Natron, or Don Ore, located about 240 kilometers northwest of Emi Koussi, which contains salt deposits and volcanic cones that, when viewed from above, take on a skull-like shape.
One of the biggest surprises of Emi Kossi is the presence of water amidst this extremely arid environment. On its northern slopes are narrow, deep gullies that block sunlight and make it cooler than the surrounding areas.
Some of these gullies retain water, and two of the largest contain permanent watercourses. One gully reaches a depth of about 600 meters, and the other about 250 meters, even though the Tibesti massif currently receives only about 20 millimeters of rain annually.
The dry channels scattered across the mountain slopes indicate that the area was wetter in the past.
This was not the first time Emi Kosi had appeared in images from space, as NASA's Apollo 7 mission crew took pictures of the mountain in October 1968, making it one of the geological formations documented by astronauts in the early days of space exploration.
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