This new NASA image shows not the Moon but a remarkable place on Earth.
Long ago, President Calvin Coolidge established this region of Idaho as the
Craters of the Moon National Monument. Apollo Astronauts trained here.
The strange landforms, nestled against the Pioneer Mountain Range near the
Snake River, were created by lava. Other than an occasional Juniper tree or
patch of wildflowers, not much grows.
Cinder cones and spatter cones rise above the sea of strangely shaped black
rocks. Lava tubes tunnel beneath the surface, providing a labyrinth of linked
caves, scientists say. The lava flows were not part of violent eruptions. Instead,
60 different quiet lava flows, from 15,000 to 2,100 years ago, covered the land.
Another eruption is due within 1,000 years and perhaps as soon as 200 years
from now.
Credit: NASA/GSFC/Landsat 7
