Western edge of the Sahara Desert recorded by NASAs Terra satellite on December 14, 2022.
The conveyor belt assists carry an essential agricultural fertilizer from the remote reaches of Western Sahara to farmlands across the world.
On the western edge of the Sahara Desert, a 61-mile-long white line cuts throughout the sand. This obvious line is the worlds longest conveyor belt system, which passes through Western Saharas desert from the Bou Craa phosphate mine to the coastal town of El Marsa near Laayoune. The conveyor belt assists transfer an important mineral from remote parts of northern Africa to farmlands throughout the world, consisting of in the United States.
Phosphorous is an essential component to all living things and forms the backbone of our DNA. It is likewise one of 3 essential nutrients utilized in commercial fertilizers. The majority of the phosphorous in these fertilizers comes from phosphate rock, which is mined predominately is China, Western Sahara and Morocco, and the United States.
Extra images taken by cosmonauts and astronauts can be viewed at the NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Morocco and Western Sahara produce about 38 million metric lots of phosphate rock a year, which was 17 percent of worldwide production in 2021. USGS also approximates that this region contains 70 percent of all known phosphate rock reserves on the world.
White dust from milky phosphate rock can be seen blowing from the belt structure in the image above, acquired on December 14, 2022, by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASAs Terra satellite. The white dust helps the belt stick out from the brown and beige desert landscape.
Open pit mine in the Sahara Desert photographed by an astronaut on the International Space Station on June 16, 2018.
The open pit mine and its conveyor belt, which brings 2,000 tons of phosphate rock an hour, is so obvious in the Sahara Desert that it has actually drawn in the attention of astronauts on the International Space Station. An astronaut took a photo (second image above) of the mine in 2018.
NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren Dauphin, using MODIS information from NASA EOSDIS LANCE and GIBS/Worldview. The International Space Station Program supports the laboratory as part of the ISS National Lab to help astronauts take images of Earth that will be of the greatest value to researchers and the public, and to make those images freely offered on the Internet. Additional images taken by cosmonauts and astronauts can be seen at the NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth.
On the western edge of the Sahara Desert, a 61-mile-long white line cuts across the sand. This conspicuous line is the worlds longest conveyor belt system, which passes through Western Saharas desert from the Bou Craa phosphate mine to the coastal town of El Marsa near Laayoune. Many of the phosphorous in these fertilizers comes from phosphate rock, which is mined predominately is China, Western Sahara and Morocco, and the United States.