The Grand Canyon looks pretty spectacular from space, as the numerous photographs of it captured by astronauts and satellites show.
And it’s not difficult to understand why this colossal natural wonder might be visible from space.
The Grand Canyon is 277 miles / 446km long, according to the U.S. National Park Service.
It’s on average 4,000 feet (1,220m) deep throughout its length and 6,000 feet (1,828m) deep at its deepest point.
The Park Service, which runs Grand Canyon National Park, says the whole park covers a whopping 1,218,375 acres or 1,904 square miles (4,931 km2).
And it’s devoid of light pollution enough to make it one of the best US National Parks for stargazing.
The Colorado River is largely responsible for the formation of the Grand Canyon, and stretches for 1,450 miles from the Rocky Mountains of Colorado to the Gulf of California in northwestern Mexico.
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The Grand Canyon is spectacular when viewed from space, and it’s a favourite target for astronauts capturing images of Earth from the International Space Station.
The ISS hosts an observatory platform called the ‘cupola‘, which is used by astronauts as a place to relax and watch the world go by as they orbit at an altitude of 400 km.
It’s also used to observe activities outside the Space Station like approaching spacecraft and spacewalks.
Astronauts also love capturing views of Earth from the cupola for both aesthetic but also scientific purposes, and the mammoth Grand Canyon stands out as an obvious target.
Astronaut images of the Grand Canyon
The image above of the Grand Canyon from space was captured by former NASA astronaut Jeff Williams, and is a composite image using multiple photos captured and ‘sewn’ together.
Williams even produced a panoramic video using the 13 images he captured and posted it to his X (formerly Twitter) account.
Another former NASA astronaut, Terry Virts, captured a view of the Grand Canyon from the Space Station on 29 December 2014.
And this spectacular image below shows snow over the Grand Canyon, captured by an astronaut onboard the International Space Station on 29 December 2018.
Satellite images of the Grand Canyon
But it's not just astronauts who have captured images of the Grand Canyon from space.
The European Space Agency's Envisat satellite captured the incredible image below on 10 May 2009.
The image also shows the Colorado Plateau (upper right corner), the Mogollon Plateau (the dark area below the Colorado Plateau) and the famous Y-shaped Lake Mead, centre left, which is a reservoir formed by the filling of the Hoover Dam and one of the largest human-made lakes in North America.
And that white and blue area to the left of Lake Mead? That's Las Vegas, although the city looks somewhat less dramatic from space during daytime!
It can be quite difficult to work out exactly what you're seeing when you look at an image of Earth from space.
The image above of the Grand Canyon is helpfully labelled to show the locations of Lake Mead, the Colorado River and Lava Falls.
It was captured by NASA's Landsat 8 satellite on 29 March 2013.
And this 3D image of the Grand Canyon from space was captured by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) instrument on NASA's Terra spacecraft.
The image shows the view from above the South Rim up Bright Angel Canyon towards the North Rim.
According to the caption accompanying the image on NASA's Earth Observatory website, visible and near infrared data were combined to produce an image simulating the natural colours of water and vegetation.
What are your favourite images of Earth from space? Let us know by emailing contactus@skyatnightmagazine.com