Back in school, our imagination was struck by the tales that only the Great Wall of China was visible from space. It turns out that people have created many impressive structures that can be seen from a height of hundreds of kilometers. True, from 400 km - the highest point of the ISS orbit - man-made structures are not visible without the help of optics, but if you go down lower, you can see a lot of interesting things. The orbit of the American shuttles was about 200 km, well, and numerous satellites fly even lower.
All that astronauts admire, you will find in today's Top 10 man-made objects on Earth that are visible from space.
10. Kuibyshev reservoir
This artificial reservoir with an area of 6.45 thousand km? It is the second largest river reservoir in the world. It is also called the Zhiguli Sea. The purpose of the reservoir is irrigation, power generation, fisheries development and other important tasks.
9. Nazca Lines
Presumably, these mysterious geoglyphs were built between 400 and 650 years of our era. The lines are located in the south of Peru on the Nazca plateau. One of the hypotheses suggests that these lines are signal lines and are intended for landing alien ships. And therefore, there should be nothing surprising in the fact that they are visible from space.
8. Volta Lake
The largest man-made reservoir in the world is located in Africa on the Volta River and has an area of 8.5 thousand km ?. The lake occupies 3.6% of the area of Ghana. More than 5.5 million people live on the shores of this reservoir.
7. Name of Sheikh Hamad
The faddish Arab sheikh billionaire Hamad bin Hamdan Al Nahyan erected the inscription “Hamad” on the private island of Al-Foutaisi. The height of each letter is 1 km, the length of the inscription is 3 km or more. The first 2 letters represent navigable canals filled with water.
6. Quarry Peacock Quarry
These dumps of the world's largest quarry, located in Chile, are clearly visible from space. The mine is located in the Andes at an altitude of 2840 meters, copper and molybdenum are mined here. Quarry depth - 900 meters, length - 4.3 km.
5. Horse Sultan
This earthen sculpture was created from coal slag mined at a mine in Caerphilly, Wales. Of course, from the ISS it can only be seen using optics, but the Sultan is very clearly visible on satellite images.
4. Firefox logo
On the sidelines of the US state of Oregon in 2006, a circle was created in the form of the logo of the then-young Firefox browser. The logo image has become one of the most popular places on Google Earth. Such original advertising really helped attract new users to the browser.
3. The Great Pyramids of Egypt
The giant tombs of the ancient pharaohs are from 138 to 146 meters high. Some researchers believe that, like the Nazca lines, the pyramids are beacons for alien aliens. Be that as it may, they can really be easily seen from near-Earth orbit.
2. Artificial island Palm Jumeirah
The bulk islands in Dubai are included in many ratings and tops. Palm Jumeirah is the largest among man-made islands and one of the most expensive structures in the world. The sixteen branches of the palm island and the mound surrounding them are perfectly visible from orbit.
1. The Great Wall of China
This grandiose structure is almost 9,000 km long, taking into account the branches. The construction of the wall began in the 4th century BC. and slowly continued until 1644. The wall is really visible from the orbit with the naked eye, but only under ideal weather conditions.