Where In The Universe #51

It’s Wednesday, so that means its time for another “Where In The Universe” challenge to test your visual knowledge of the cosmos. See if you can name where in the Universe this image is from, and give yourself extra points if you can name the spacecraft responsible for the image. Make your guess and post a comment, but please no links to the answer. Check back sometime on Thursday to find the answer and see how you did.

UPDATE: The answer has now been posted below. Don’t peek at the answer until you make your guess!

This is Waw An Namus, (or also called Uau En Namus) which is a volcano in south-central Libya. It was photographed from the Space Shuttle on mission STS-52. I love the description of this landform on the referring webpage from Oregon State:

“A low caldera about 4 km in diameter is surrounded by a 5 – 10 km wide dark black deposit of ash that stands out starkly against the yellowish desert. The few people who have visited have been struck by its beauty: The Italian geologist Angelo Pesce wrote that as seen from the rim, one is “overwhelmed by a scene of rare beauty….Inside, the only thing one wishes is to be alone and wander in admiration from one end to the other.” But Pesce also complains about the “veritable cloud of mosquitoes, which not having many occasions to feed on fresh blood warmly welcome visitors to their desert realm. The Arabic word Namus means mosquito.”

Not sure I’d want to take a stroll through the clouds of mosquitoes!

This image was actually suggested by our publisher, Fraser Cain. We were hoping people would think it might be Io, which a few of you guessed. If anyone else has any suggestions for a Where In The Universe Challenge, email me at nancyatkinson04 at yahoo.com

Check back next week for another WITU Challenge!