Great Sandy Desert

Great Sandy Desert

In a small corner of the vast Great Sandy Desert in Western Australia, large sand dunes—the only sand in this desert of scrub and rock—appear as lines stretching from left to right. The light-colored fan shapes are scars from wildfires.

This image was acquired by Landsat 7’s Enhanced Thematic Mapper plus (ETM+) sensor on August 22, 2000. This is a false-color composite image made using near-infrared, red, and blue wavelengths. The image has also been sharpened using the sensor’s panchromatic band.

Image provided by the USGS EROS Data Center Satellite Systems Branch