Lake Tengiz, Kazakhstan
Ties to the skies
In this sharp shot snapped from the International Space Station, we see the tangled shores of a Kazakhstan salt lake with a historic link to space exploration. In the winter of 1976, Lake Tengiz was the site of an all-hands-on-deck recovery operation when a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft crashed through the ice in sub-zero cold, stranding the crew underwater for 9 hours until they were rescued. That's certainly more action than is typical at this peaceful, wetland-like lake—watch the skies over Tengiz nowadays and you're more likely to see birds coming in for a landing, with more than 300 avian species (including 22 endangered ones) calling this Ramsar site home.
Ties to the skies
In this sharp shot snapped from the International Space Station, we see the tangled shores of a Kazakhstan salt lake with a historic link to space exploration. In the winter of 1976, Lake Tengiz was the site of an all-hands-on-deck recovery operation when a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft crashed through the ice in sub-zero cold, stranding the crew underwater for 9 hours until they were rescued. That's certainly more action than is typical at this peaceful, wetland-like lake—watch the skies over Tengiz nowadays and you're more likely to see birds coming in for a landing, with more than 300 avian species (including 22 endangered ones) calling this Ramsar site home.
© NASA Earth Observatory / NASA 2026-09-11 08:45:52 :