Released today by the European Space Agency (ESA) is this image of Southeast Namibia and the western edge of the Kalahari Desert.

The Kalahari is not a true desert as it receives too much rain, but it is a semi-arid zone and an area of ancient fossilised sand dunes. Some of these dunes, also known as sand sheets, can be seen running across the top-right corner of the image and appear surprisingly parallel and uniform.To the east, the landscape also looks like an alien orange world and is dominated by ridges, escarpments and dry lake beds known as salt pans. Roads cutting sharply across the landscape are a reminder that this region is not entirely unpopulated.

Copernicus Sentinel data (2017), processed by ESA