This Week's Where In The Universe Challenge

By Nancy Atkinson - January 7, 2009 at 11:57 AM UTC | Observing
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This week's Where In The Universe Challenge has a new twist. This image was actually submitted by one of our readers, Wienie van der Oord from Israel. Its quite an interesting image, don't you agree?! I'll not give any hints as to where Wienie got the image, or what it is, or whether this image can be found anywhere else on the web (for those of you that like to search online for the image and link the answer!). You'll have to wait until tomorrow (Thursday) for the answer to be revealed for this week's Challenge. My only hope is that some

conspiracy theorist types

don't see this and claim this image is proof of life on an alien world. Or, possibly, could it really be.....?!

Check back tomorrow to find out! It will be interesting to see the guesses on this one, so submit 'em in the comment section.

UPDATE (1/8): The answer has now been posted below. No peeking before you make your guess!

This image was certainly a lot of fun, and it's one you can't find anywhere else on the internet. It was sent in by UT reader Wienie van der Oord, and I'll let her explain what it is:

"After a short rainfall in the Arava desert in Israel, a tiny desert plant developed a root and two leaves and looked like an "alien" running over another planet," she said. The raindrops formed the "craters" in the desert sand, and the root going down into the ground suspended the seed above ground, making it look like this little bunny-like creature was scooting across an alien world. The plant in question that has just sprouted is the Zygophyllum Dumosum, a shrub native to Israel that can be found in the Judean desert and Dead Sea Valley, the Negev Hills and Arava Valley. Wienie sent another image too, after she scooped up the little "alien" and put it in her hand: [caption id="attachment_23407" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="ZYGOPHYLLUM DUMOSUM sprout. Image credit: Wienie van der Oord"]

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If you're partial to plants, here's a

Wildflower of Israel website

where you can find out more about this shrub.

Thanks to Wienie for sharing this very "cute" image. If you have an original photograph you'd like to submit or a suggested image for a Where In The Universe Challenge, you can send them to me. To find my email address you have to visit my personal website, nancyatkinson.com . Sorry, I'm not going to be spammed to death by posting my email address!

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