Atacama Desert, Chile

Vivid colors belie the arid landscape of northern Chile where the Atacama Desert, one of the world’s driest, meets the foothills of the Andes. Here salt pans and gorges choked with mineral-streaked sediments give way to white-capped volcanoes. This scene was acquired by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) instrument on NASA’s Terra satellite on October 28, 2001. Image provided by the USGS EROS Data Center Satellite Systems Branch as part of the Earth as Art II image series.