Categories: EarthEarth ObservationSpace Station

Is This What a Mars Outpost Will Look Like from Orbit?

Image taken by Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano from the International Space Station, who said, 'Maybe one day our settlements on Mars will look like this." Credit: NASA/ASI

This sure looks like a futuristic settlement on the Red Planet, as Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano pondered on Twitter yesterday when he shared this image taken from the International Space Station, saying, “Maybe one day our settlements on Mars will look like this.”

But what is this facility — which must be huge and looks to be out in the middle of absolutely nowhere? A secret new branch at Area 51? A mock-up of a base from the “Legion of Space” sci-fi books?

It’s actually one of the world’s largest lithium salt production facilities, located in the “lithium triangle” of Argentina, Chile and Bolivia, high in the Atacama desert in Chile. Below is an aerial view:

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An aerial view of the brine pools and processing areas of the Soquimich lithium mine on the Atacama salt flat, the largest lithium deposit currently in production, in the Atacama desert of northern Chile, on Jan. 10, 2013. Credit: Ivan Alvarado / Reuters.

You can read a great article here (with more great images) about the lithium mining operations, enabling all your electronic gizmos to be powered.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy has been with Universe Today since 2004, and has published over 6,000 articles on space exploration, astronomy, science and technology. She is the author of two books: "Eight Years to the Moon: the History of the Apollo Missions," (2019) which shares the stories of 60 engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make landing on the Moon possible; and "Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos" (2016) tells the stories of those who work on NASA's robotic missions to explore the Solar System and beyond. Follow Nancy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Nancy_A and and Instagram at and https://www.instagram.com/nancyatkinson_ut/