Free of vegetation, the gray and white lava-covered peak of the Ubinas Volcano looks like it could be on the Moon or some other extraterrestrial body in this detailed true-color image from July 24, 2010.
This depiction of an area south of San Martin de Los Andes, Argentina, was the first Shuttle Radar Topography Mission view of the tallest mountain chain in the western hemisphere.
Colors ranging from deep brown to stark white give New Zealand’s South Island its intense beauty. The snow-capped Southern Alps run down the northern shore of the island. The mountains are rising as the Pacific Plate, the section of the Earth’s crust that holds the Pacific Ocean, including parts of New Zealand’s South Island, sinks beneath the Australia Plate, which holds the rest of New Zealand.