Released today, a stunning, false-color image taken by Sentinel-2A in August.
This is southern Mongolia, with China to the south and Russia to the north, deep in the heart of Asia. The average elevation is 1500 m (about 5000 ft) above sea level.
Asia's largest desert, the Gobi Desert, is a rain shadow desert, because the rain from the Indian Ocean is blocked by the Himalayas. At the bottom of the image, you can see part of the Baga Bogd Mountain range – its highest peak is 3600 m (nearly 12,000 ft).
There is some vegetation and the different red tones represent different types of vegetation. Erosion patterns are very noticeable in the image, and in the top right, there is the saline Taatsiin Tsagaan Lake. It shows up a bright turquoise because of its depth and high salt concentration.
