River Plate 1985

[Diante Scharsch]

Megafanscan spread across vast areas, especially where they coalesce in major river valleys such as the Paran. There are many other megafans in South America, but the combined area of just the three megafans above is 376,000 square kilometers (145,200 square mile), almost equal to the land area of Japan.

Megafans are being adapted for agriculture at an ever increasing rate. Their flat landscapes are ideal for developing transport and irrigation infrastructure. Being composed of softer river sediments, they are also relatively easy to plow.

Astronaut photograph STS51D-46-22 was acquired on April 18, 1985, with a Hasselblad film camera using a focal length of 100 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 STS-51D 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 Justin Wilkinson, Texas State University, JETS Contract at NASA-JSC.

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