The Place Where Earth from Space Looks Like a Floating Piece of Cardboard

By Nancy Atkinson - June 24, 2014 05:59 PM UTC | Planetary Science

As

we've noted before

, astronaut Reid Wiseman is sending out a bevy of tweets and pictures from his perch on board the International Space Station, but this recent image got our attention.

"Can't explain it, just looked oddly unnatural to me and I liked it,"

Wiseman said on Twitter

, leaving no info on what Earthly feature might be.

Floating cardboard? That's what many people thought. Comments from Twitter:

Breaking news: Earth is made of Cardboard

" @astro_reid: Can't explain it, looks oddly unnatural to me & I like it. pic.twitter.com/OEzZpH85FZ "

— Connor P (@connorpj1)

@astro_reid it's a piece of cardboard with some sugar icing spilt on it...no???!!!! ;-) — Anna Richards (@mrsannarichards)

@astro_reid@NASA Looks like a piece of floating cardboard. Do you know where it was Reid? Thanks — Stephane Gentile (@FrenchScotPilot)

So what is this image and where on Earth is it?

I checked with

Peter Caltner

, who regularly tweets information on astronaut photos and he said the image shows Western Sahara, near

El Aaiun

(coordinates 26.824071,-13.222504) and the straight white line is a conveyor belt facility from a phosphate mine at Bou Craa that goes to a loading port at the coast. The conveyer belt is about 60 miles/100 km long, Peter noted.

You can see more images of this feature in

this Google search

, but none of them have quite the angle Wiseman had, which gave it the straight-edge box-like appearance from space.

See more comments about the image here.

Thanks again to Peter Caltner for his assistance!

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com