Astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti captured from ISS High Atlas Mountains, Morocco.
The Atlas Mountains are a mountain range in the Maghreb in North Africa. It separates the Sahara Desert from the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean; the name “Atlantic” is derived from the mountain range, which stretches around 2,500km through Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. The Atlas Mountains are primarily inhabited by Berber populations. The High Atlas, also called the Grand Atlas, as shown in the image, rises in the west at the Atlantic Ocean and stretches in an eastern direction to the Moroccan-Algerian border. At the Atlantic and to the southwest the range drops abruptly and makes an impressive transition to the coast and the Anti-Atlas range. To the north, in the direction of Marrakech, the range descends less abruptly. The range includes Jbel Toubkal, which at 4,167m is the highest in the range and lies in Toubkal National Park. The range serves as a weather system barrier in Morocco running east-west and separating the Sahara from the Mediterranean and continental zones to the north and west.
The local scenery on the ground is as follows.
Reference: Samantha Cristoforetti’s Tweet
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