ISS006-E-27767 Click the photo number to access all resolutions available and the database record.
Once the sun sets over the Nile, modern lighting outlines a unique set of features. Later in his tenure on the space station, Astronaut Don Petit used his “barn door tracker” to take this nighttime photograph of the bend in the Nile. We expect to be able to identify cities at night by their bright lighting. By comparing the daytime and nighttime views of Nile, we can see that lights follow geological patterns as well. A faint strip of shoreline lights outlines the dark line of the river. Cities such as Luxor and Qena are bright and striking. Well-lit roads, such as the one from Luxor to its airport can be distinguished. A very unique feature of this night photograph is that the pattern of settlements on the slopes rising from the Nile valley produces the final outside strip of lighting.
The Nile has entrenched itself by erosion into the desert plateau by 1000-1500 feet, producing a maze of steep sided valleys, many with cliffs. The older upper surface of the plateau is slightly darker than the younger valley surfaces eroded into it due to the buildup of darker “desert varnish” minerals on rock surfaces. The older surfaces show another interesting geological feature known as eolian streaks. These are two-dimensional features generated by dominant winds from the northwest. These are long, lighter colored features of moving sand (or areas where sand has been swept away).
Luxor (the ancient Thebes) is the location of the great necropolis known as the Valley of the Kings. By using the full detail in one of the space station photographs (circled), we can see the light colors exposed from archaeological excavation. The valley is a narrow, easily defended ravine where the plateau extends closest to the Nile and to the city of Luxor. Possibly more important was the valley’s symbolic location on the west side of the Nile in the direction of the setting sun, which was associated with the afterlife. The sun passed over the pharaoh’s mortuary temple, built for their cult on the floodplain near Thebes, and then over the pharaoh’s tomb in the valley, a symbolically important connection.
