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Sooner or later, mankind will make its next giant
leap — to other planets. So it’s really just a matter of time until
interplanetary tours appear, followed by hyperspace hotels, black hole
buffets and Disney World Andromeda. Until then, the 10 landscapes that
follow will make you feel like you’ve landed on a fantastic, faraway
world — but with no space suit required.
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The Pinnacles, Nambung National Park, Australia - The Travel Library/Rex
Features - The Pinnacles, Nambung National Park, Australia Mars will
almost certainly be our first interplanetary stop, but spoiler alert: We
already know the Red Planet is mostly rocky desert. Sound boring? Not so
fast: Australia’s Outback is largely rocky desert, yet it often amazes
with geological oddities like the Bungle Bungle Range and The Pinnacles
(pictured), thousands of surreal limestone monoliths that rise from the
ochre sands of Western Australia’s Nambung National Park. The stones,
some as tall as streetlights, resemble jagged fangs, weathered
tombstones — even camouflaged Martians waiting for the moment to strike.
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Pamukkale, Turkey - If the tourism
industry of the 25th century goes looking for a “spa planet,” it could
very well resemble this World Heritage Site. Its name means “cotton
castle” in Turkish, but it’s not a castle and it isn’t made of cotton:
The oblong hill’s gentle slopes are in fact covered with travertine
terraces, layers of hardened calcium carbonate that spews from hot
springs on the summit. As it flows downhill, the mineral-rich (and
harmlessly radioactive) spring water fills and shapes the chalky
terraces, while slowly sculpting whimsical caves and cliffs — and
drawing bathers by the busload.
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Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia - On low-gravity
worlds, it might be possible to walk on water. (Turning the H2O into
wine, however, is another matter.) But the same effect can be achieved
right here on Earth thanks to the world’s largest saltwater flat. This
Jamaica-sized former lake, now covered with a gleaming salt crust
several metres thick, is also one of the world’s flattest landscapes,
with variations in altitude averaging less than one metre. Put all this
together, and what happens when it rains? You get the planet’s largest
mirror, with even light precipitation producing a highly reflective
surface that’s ideal for messiah impressions.
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Grand Prismatic Spring, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming - From above,
the true nature of America’s largest hot spring (pictured) is anyone’s
guess. Volcano? Meteor crater? Alien swimming pool? Amoeba? A couple of
those efforts aren’t that far off: The underlying Yellowstone Caldera,
one of the world’s largest active volcano fields, delivers the
geothermal jolt that heats the football field-sized pond to a toasty 70
degrees Celsius. The gorgeous colours, meanwhile, come courtesy of
pigmented bacteria that feed on dissolved minerals.
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Sossusvlei, Namibia - Luke Skywalker would feel right at home in and
around this bone-dry lakebed in the southern reaches of the vast Namib
Desert. Like the Jedi knight’s home planet of Tatooine, Sossusvlei is
famous for its towering sand dunes, some of which are nearly 400 metres
tall. The area’s petrified dunes — ancient red sand hills that have
turned to stone — also draw Jeep-driving visitors, as does the aptly
named Deadvlei, another salt and clay pan where the haunting remains of
acacia trees are all that remains of a long-departed desert oasis.
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Lake Myvatn, Iceland - If it’s cosmic enough for the Apollo 11 crew,
it’s cosmic enough for this list. NASA trained its astronauts for
moonwalks on the barren lava fields surrounding this volcanically formed
lake, which is also ringed with spectacular craters, steaming hills,
lava pillars and bubbling mud pits. Myvatn’s lively volcanism shouldn’t
be trifled with — what with the lack of safety ropes and all — but it
turns out visitors may have more to fear from tiny, biting bugs in a
spot whose Icelandic name means “Midge Lake.”
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Purnululu National Park, Australia - This remote World Heritage Site in
Western Australia looks like the setting for “Journey to the Bee
Planet,” or some other forgotten sci-fi flick from the 1950s. The park’s
main draw, the Bungle Bungle Range, looks uncannily like a sea of
towering orange and black beehives — and with a name that’s so similar
to “bumble,” well, it’s almost too B-movie-worthy to be true. The
sandstone domes tower hundred of metres over palm-filled gorges and
gullies, some of which are adorned with ancient aboriginal carvings
depicting, among other things, techniques for harvesting honey.
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Göreme National Park, Turkey - If one of the aforementioned B-movies
landed an “X” rating, however, its setting might resemble the decidedly
phallic landscape of the historic Cappadocia region in central Turkey.
Sandstone “fairy chimneys” loom over an area known locally (and
euphemistically) as the “Valley of Love,” which over the centuries has
proven ideal for the construction of intricate cave dwellings (and dirty
jokes). These days, tour operators offer balloon flights over the
bizarre region, providing prime views of its honeycomb cliffs and
volcanic cones.
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Meteor crater, Arizona - Unlike the Earth, some planets aren’t shy about
showing off their meteor craters, which is why this cosmic impact site
in the Arizona desert feels so otherworldly. Also known as the Berringer
Crater — named after the family that owns the site – the
1.2-kilometre-wide, 120-metre-deep pockmark was created about 50,000
years ago when a mansion-sized meteorite slammed into the ground at
around 40,000 kilometres per hour. The 10-megaton blast vaporized most
of the space rock, but left what the Berringer family calls “the most
well known, best preserved meteorite crater on Earth,” which these days
can be explored via a visitor centre with movie theatre and gift shop —
where a bag of “Authentic Crater Dust” can be bought for $11.25.
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“The Door to Hell,” Turkmenistan - Not every interplanetary vacation
will go off without a hitch. Imagine crawling out of the crater created
by a crashed spaceship, and looking back to see — what? A fiery fissure
in a desolate desert landscape, perhaps? The scene could very well
resemble the 70-metre-wide cleft in central Turkmenistan that was formed
not by an errant rocket, but by natural gas drilling gone awry. In 1971,
the ground beneath a Soviet rig collapsed, leaving a massive burning
chasm that geologists thought would stop smouldering in a matter of
days. More than four decades later, however, it’s still going strong,
drawing bus tours and earning the site its evocative nickname. |
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More Interesting Pictures
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