space on earth: 5 places on our planet straight from outer-space
If you were anything like us as kids, you spent a lot of your childhood dreaming of bouncing off celestial craters, encountering spooky alien life, and drifting towards infinite, star-studded horizons. From dusty red craters to blue glacial valleys, you needn’t travel outside the ozone for an eyeful of intergalactic vistas. We’ve chosen our top five destinations on Earth that will take you straight to outer space, no oxygen tank required.
Socotra island, yemen
Yemen's Socotra Island is home to an incredible biodiversity and intergalactic landscape of white sands and cragged mountains. The island's iconic Dragon Blood Trees look like something out of a Dr. Seuss Cartoon, their twisted branches sprouting like mushrooms out of the earth.
It's an utterly unique landscape that we'd love to see first-hand one day. Like many delicate ecosystems on Earth, however, the island has suffered recently from a steady stream of tourists and a lack of environmental protection. with social media becoming an integral part of the way we travel, remote locations like socotra can go viral in an instant without a second thought for the environmental cost of getting that perfect instagram shot.
Lençóis Maranhenses National Park, Brazil
appearing to stretch far beyond the horizon, Lençóis Maranhenses National Park is an utterly surreal landscape of undulating sand dunes that have to be seen to be believed. in Portuguese, lencóis maranhenses literally means ‘bedsheets of maranhão’, taking their name from the pristine and pillowy white dunes that have made it famous. While the park’s Puffy sheets of white sand may resemble a desert landscape, lencóis maranhenses is not in fact a desert. for six months of the year, torrential rainstorms strike the sand dunes, filling each crevice with water and creating vast lagoons.
Mungo National Park, Australia
The rich history and visual landscape of the Mungo National Park are both truly awe-inspiring. Part of the Willandra Lakes World Heritage Area, the park is home to the Mungo Man and Mungo Lady, found in one of the world’s oldest ritual cremation sites. This archaeological discovery confirms the existence of life in the region as far back as 42, 000 years. Tools, fireplaces, and burials hidden deep in the sand reveal the evolution of the Willandra people through ice-ages and dry periods to continue to survive to this day.
Geologically, the thick stratum of sand and rock tell a fascinating story of climate, water, and landform change spanning over 100, 000 years. Walking through the National Park today, one feels as though they’re trekking across Mars’ red sands or bounding across the rocky craters of the Moon. Come nightfall, visitors are treated to a theatre of stars and planets, as they doze off under the same sky as those who walked the earth some 40 thousand years earlier.
wulingyuan scenic area, zhangjiajie, china
Located in china’s western province of hunan lies wilingyuan scenic area, an ancient forest of mythical dimensions. picture skyscraper-tall sandstone towers, impossibly deep ravines, lush greenery, and rare blooms. at various times of the day, a thick fog closes in on the clusters of pillars and peaks, causing them to appear as though they’re floating high above the clouds. it’s no surprise that the surreal location inspired james cameron’s rich alien world in avatar.
Racetrack playa, death valley national park, california
If you’re looking for a sign of alien life on earth, then california’s racetrack playa is the place to look. Known as one of the hottest places on earth, its unbearable temperatures alone makes it ripe for the title of a planetary landscape on earth. But the racetrack is famous for more than just its sparse desert plains that may be confused for a satellite shot of mars. dubbed sailing stones, scientists have observed rocks move across the desert, seemingly of their own accord. While no one has ever seen these rocks change location, the deep tracks they leave behind seem to make evident that they are moving. Scientists think they may have found an explanation for their mysterious movement, but we think it’s more fun to speculate about forces beyond terrestrial control….