While orbiting over the Tibetan Plateau, an astronaut aboard the International Space Station took this photo of Ngangla Ringco, one of the plateau’s numerous saline lakes. The lake spreads over 500 square kilometers (200 square miles), extending past the bottom of the image. Ngangla Ringco sits at an altitude of 4,700 meters (15,400 feet), making it one of the highest-elevation saline lakes in the world.
Ngangla Ringco’s bright blue water contrasts with the surrounding brown, rocky terrain. The lake’s water exhibits two distinct hues, with lighter and milkier shades toward the top left and darker hues in the center. These colors can be influenced by the amount of sediment mixed in the water and differences in the water depth. Ngangla Ringco also contains multiple islands, four of which are visible in the image.
The Tibetan Plateau has numerous lakes because of its proximity to melting glaciers and runoff from the Himalayas. Water can also come from precipitation and melting permafrost. Many lakes atop the plateau, including Ngangla Ringco, have no outflow. Evaporation then becomes the primary mechanism for water loss and increases in salinity through the concentration of dissolved salts.
Astronaut photograph ISS071-E-714981 was acquired on September 22, 2024, with a Nikon Z9 digital camera using a focal length of 400 millimeters. It is provided 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 71 crew. The image has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast, and lens artifacts have been removed. The International Space Station Program supports the laboratory as part of the ISS National Lab to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public, and to make those images freely available on the Internet. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. Caption by Chloe Locke, Amentum JETS II Contract at NASA-JSC.
