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Earth from Space 2001 Calendar

This image shows the area of the Roter Kamm impact crater in Namibia. The crater rim is visible as the bright pinkish-white circular feature toward the bottom center of the image. The crater is about 2.5 km (1.5 mi) in diameter and about 130 m (400 ft) deep. The crater was formed by the impact of a moderate-size asteroid (about 300 m or 900 ft in diameter) about five million years ago. In this image, the darkest regions are areas of thick sand deposits, greenish regions are areas of vegetation growing on sand soil, and reddish regions are areas of thinly mantled limestone outcrops. The image was obtained by SIR-C/X-SAR on the Space Shuttle Endeavour on April 14, 1994 and shows an area about 26 km (16 mi) on a side.