Where In The Universe Challenge #149

We’re back! Where In The Universe took a little vacation, and thanks to everyone who wrote in to say they missed their weekly WITU.

You remember what to do, right? Take a look at this image and see if you can determine where in the universe this image is from; give yourself extra points if you can name the spacecraft/telescope responsible for the image. We’ll provide the image today, but won’t reveal the answer until later. This gives you a chance to mull over the image and provide your answer/guess in the comment section. Please, no links or extensive explanations of what you think this is — give everyone the chance to guess.

Remember, we’ll take suggestions for future WITU’s — just send Nancy an email

UPDATE: The answer is now posted below.

We didn’t fool too many people that this was perhaps a HiRISE image from Mars. It actually is Ar Rub al Khali Sand Sea, in the Arabian Peninsula and it was photographed by an Expedition 27 crew member on the International Space Station. The Ar Rub al Khali, also known as the “Empty Quarter”, is a large region of sand dunes and interdune flats known as a sand sea (or erg).

You can see a larger version of it on the Marshall Space Flight Center Flickr page.