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Space Station Science

Picture of the Day

June 2, 2003

The Valley of the Kings: Part 1
Photo credit: ISS Expedition 6 science officer Don Pettit, NASA

June 2, 2003: Halfway between the Nile delta in the north and the
Sudanese border in the south, the Nile River cuts a deep U-shaped
bend into the Egyptian desert near Luxor. On Feb. 14, 2003, the
International Space Station (ISS) flew over the Great Bend and
science officer Don Pettit took its picture. 

Justin Wilkinson, a Lockheed Martin earth scientist who works at the
Johnson Space Center, describes the photo: "The dark river channel is
bordered by green fields of the intensely farmed floodplain. The
sharp margins of the agriculture generally mark a distinct break
between the moist valley floor and the much drier slopes leading down
from the surrounding high desert." 

In Arabic these dry slopes are called wadis. Ranging in size from
small gullies to wide valleys, wadis are carved from desert by
infrequent--though often torrential--rains. From the ISS, they all
look much alike, but one of them is special: the Valley of the Kings. 

For about 500 years between 1500 and 1000 BC, Egyptians buried their
pharaohs not in pyramids but in grand underground complexes. More
than sixty royal tombs, including that of King Tutankhamen, are
located in the Valley of the Kings across the river from Luxor. A
close-up of the Valley extracted from one of Pettit's photos shows
curious light markings--a telltale sign of modern archaeological
excavation. (It also illustrates the stunning resolution of Earth
pictures taken from the space station.) 

The Valley lies on the west side of the Nile in the direction of the
setting sun. That's no coincidence. In ancient times, sunset was
associated with the afterlife. Come back tomorrow and we'll show you
what the area looks like after sunset. 

Today's image is a mosaic of three pictures (ISS006-E-27767, 27768
and 27770) taken by Don Pettit and stitched together by researchers
at the Earth Sciences and Image Analysis Laboratory at the Johnson
Space Center. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts
may be viewed at the NASA-JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of
Earth.

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