Ecologically Important El Bibane Lagoon Photographed by Astronaut Aboard the Space Station

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El Bibane Lagoon Annotated

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October 25, 2020

An astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS) took this picture of a 30-kilometer (20-mile) long lagoon on the eastern coast of Tunisia. A narrow sand bar separates it from the Mediterranean Sea. The town of Al Marsá looks like a somewhat darker zone at the head of the lagoon.

The lagoon is environmentally essential. Fish grow to maturity in this safeguarded nursery and after that swim out to sea by means of narrow openings near the middle of the sand bar, making Bibane among the very best understood fishing premises in Tunisia. It is likewise an essential reproducing website for migratory coast birds and has actually been subsequently stated a RAMSAR website, a classification for safeguarded wetlands of worldwide environmental significance.

Bathymetric maps reveal that the long line of lighter-toned shallow water offshore is a drowned coastline. A little island, hardly above water level, marks completion of this coastline. This coast was exposed to active wave action when water level was lower on numerous events in the previous million years.

This location has actually included in research studies of microtopography on Mars. Although not noticeable from the spaceport station, thin layers of algae type on the salt flats surrounding these seaside lagoons. Known as algal mats, these functions have actually been recommended as possible analogs for little functions observed on Mars by the Curiosity rover.

Astronaut picture ISS064-E-424 was gotten on October 25, 2020, with a Nikon D5 digital cam utilizing a 460 millimeter lens and is offered by the ISS Crew Earth Observations Facility and the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, Johnson Space Center. The image was taken by a member of the Expedition 64 team. The image has actually been cropped and improved to enhance contrast, and lens artifacts have actually been gotten rid of. The International Space Station Program supports the lab as part of the ISS National Lab to assist astronauts take images of Earth that will be of the best worth to researchers and the general public, and to make those images easily offered on the Internet. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be seen at the NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. Caption by Justin Wilkinson, Texas State University, JETS Contract at NASA-JSC.