A View From Space: White Sands National Park, New Mexico

2023-05-18

An astronaut aboard the International Space Station captured the image below of the White Sands National Park in south-central New Mexico. A patch of bright white in the otherwise reddish-brown landscape when viewed from above, the dunes are composed of gypsum deposited in ancient Lake Otero. This water body existed when the climate was cooler and wetter.

The site is the largest gypsum dune field in the world. The gypsum originated from the nearby San Andres Mountains and began washing into the basin close to the end of the last ice age, approximately 11,000 years ago.

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An astronaut aboard the International Space Station captured the image of the White Sands National Park located in south-central New Mexico. The national park is situated in the Tularosa Basin and spans roughly the southern half of the 275 square miles (712 square kilometers) dune field. Credits: NASA/ISS Crew Earth Observations Facility and the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit — A view of the White Sands National Park from the International Space Station. The national park is situated in the Tularosa Basin and spans roughly the southern half of the 275 sq miles (712 sq km) dune field. Credits: NASA/ISS Crew Earth Observations Facility and the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit

New gypsum deposits are added to the dunes when mineral-rich waters from the surrounding mountains drain into the southwest margin of White Sands and subsequently evaporate to form gypsum crystals. Over the years, wind processes have eroded and shaped the dunes to reach approximately 60 ft (18 m) tall.

The White Sands region has a rich history in the aerospace industry. NASA utilized three runways built into the northern part of the lakebed for rocket testing and shuttle pilot training. The White Sands Space Harbor was used for one shuttle landing when STS-3 returned from its eight-day mission to space. NASA continues to operate its White Sands Test Facility in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

More recently, White Sands served a critical role in the commercial space industry as the landing location for Boeing CST-100 Starliner’s Orbit Flight Test-1 in December 2019 and Boeing CST-100 Starliner’s Orbit Flight Test-2 in May 2022. The space harbor is also designated as the landing location for Boeing’s first crewed mission (Boeing Starliner-1), scheduled to fly to the space station later this year.

In addition to NASA operations, the United States Department of Defense operates nearby sites, including the Holloman Air Force Base located at image right.

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Image was taken by an Expedition 68 crew member on December 26, 2022, with a Nikon D5 digital camera using a focal length of 210 millimeters. The image has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast, and lens artifacts have been removed. Caption by Cadan Cummings, Jacobs, JSC Engineering, Technology, and Science contract at Johnson. Credits: NASA/ISS Crew Earth Observations Facility and the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit — Image was taken by an Expedition 68 crew member on December 26, 2022, with a Nikon D5 digital camera using a focal length of 210 mm. The image is cropped and enhanced to improve contrast, and lens artifacts have been removed. Credits: NASA/ISS Crew Earth Observations Facility and the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit

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 NASA's Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth.