Astronaut Ivan Vagner captured from ISS Karakul Lake, Tajikistan.
Karakul or Qarokul (Kyrgyz for “black lake”, replacing the older Tajik name Siob) is an endorheic lake, 25km in diameter, located within a 52km impact crater. It is located in the Tajik National Park in the Pamir Mountains in Tajikistan. A preliminary estimate dated it to between 25 Ma and 23 Ma, but it may be from the recent Pliocene epoch (5.3 to 2.6 Ma). The lake/crater lies at an elevation of 3,960m above mean sea level. A peninsula projecting from the south shore and an island off the north shore divide the lake into two basins: a smaller, relatively shallow eastern one, between 13-19m deep, and a larger western one, 221-230m deep. It is endorheic (lacking a drainage outlet) and the water is brackish. The Karakul impact structure was first identified around 1987 through studies of imagery taken from space.
The local scenery on the ground is as follows.
Reference: Ivan Vagner’s Tweet
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