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Khartoum, Sudan
| Title |
Khartoum, Sudan |
| Description |
Sudan's capital city, Khartoum, translates as "Elephant's Trunk." The name describes the shape of the Nile where the Blue and the White Nile Rivers unite to form the single Nile River that flows northward into Egypt. This image shows the rivers near the end of the dry season. The White Nile (western branch) runs through Sudan from Uganda. The White Nile originates in equatorial regions, where rainfall occurs throughout the year, as a result, it runs at a nearly constant rate throughout the year. The Blue Nile, nearly dry this time of year, flows out of the Ethiopian highlands, where rainfall is more seasonal. The Blue Nile swells in the late summer and early fall with rains from the summer monsoons. The flow at these times can be so great that the volume is too much for the river's channel, causing the Nile to flow backward at the junction. In recent years, floods in Khartoum have occurred in August with heavy monsoon rainfall. (See more images from the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer [ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=5148 ] and Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer [ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=5113 ] instruments) Khartoum is one of the largest Muslim cities in North Africa, but it has a fairly short history. Founded as a military outpost in 1821, a Sudanese flag has only flown over the city since 1956. Today, Khartoum is home to more than a million people, including many refugees, both from neighboring countries as well as from an ongoing civil war in southern Sudan. The city has a low profile, dominated by sprawling areas of small buildings that are supported by little infrastructure. Astronaut photograph ISS010-E-23451 [ http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/scripts/sseop/photo.pl?mission=ISS010&roll=E&frame=23451 ] was acquired April 7, 2005, with a Kodak 760C digital camera with a 400 mm lens, and is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations experiment and the Image Science & Analysis Group, Johnson Space Center. The International Space Station Program [ http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/home/index.html ] supports the laboratory to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public, and to make those images freely available on the Internet. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. [ http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/ ] |
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Sudan as seen from the Apoll
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| Title |
Sudan as seen from the Apollo 7 spacecraft |
| Description |
Sudan, showing White Nile and Blue Nile rivers below Khartoum, as seen from the Apollo 7 spacecraft during its 44th revolution of the earth. Photographed from an altitude of 130 nautical miles, at ground elapsed time of 69 hours and 10 minutes. Note quilted-patchwork effect created by irrigated cultivated land. |
| Date Taken |
1968-10-14 |
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Areas of Sudan and Egypt as
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| Title |
Areas of Sudan and Egypt as seen from Gemini 11 spacecraft |
| Description |
Libyan Desert area of Sudan, foreground, and the United Arab Republic (Egypt), at lower left, as seen from the Gemini 11 spacecraft at an altitude of 300 nautical miles during its 27th revolution of the earth. In view is the Nile River from Biba in Egypt to Khartoum in the Sudan. The Red Sea is in background. At upper left is the Arabian Peninsula. At top right is Ethiopia. Note L-band antenna of the Agena Target Vehicle. |
| Date Taken |
1966-09-14 |
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Nile River, Khartoum, Sudan,
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| Title |
Nile River, Khartoum, Sudan, Africa |
| Description |
This view shows the confluence of the White Nile and the Blue Nile rivers to form the Nile River at Khartoum, the capital city of Sudan (15.5N, 32.5E). The White Nile comes from the south and drains the Sudd swamp and African Rift Valley while the Blue Nile comes from the southeast draining the Ethiopian highlands. The herringbone field patterns to the south of the city are agricultural fields where cotton is the main crop. |
| Date Taken |
1983-04-09 |
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Confluence of the White and
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| Title |
Confluence of the White and Blue Nile Rivers at Khartoum, Sudan |
| Description |
The Blue Nile River flowing from Lake Tana to the east and the larger White Nile River flowing from the Rift Valley region combine to form the Nile River at Khartoum, the capital city of Sudan (15.5N, 33.0E). The rivers normally flow out of phase as a result of the differing maximum precipitation periods of their watersheds. The differing flow periods allows longer use of the river for agriculture irrigation in the fields south of the city. |
| Date Taken |
1990-01-15 |
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Agricultural fields, Khartou
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| Title |
Agricultural fields, Khartoum, Sudan, Africa |
| Description |
This herringbone pattern of irrigated agricultural fields near Khartoum, Sudan (14.5N, 33.5E) is very distinctive in both size and shape. The region contains thousands of these rectangular fields bounded by canals which carry water from both the White and Blue Nile Rivers. A crop rotation system is used so that some fields are in cotton, millit, sorghum or fallow to conserve moisture and control weeds and insects. See also STS049-96-003. |
| Date Taken |
1992-05-16 |
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Agricultural fields, Khartou
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| Title |
Agricultural fields, Khartoum, Sudan, Africa Description: This herringbone pattern of irrigated agricultural fields near Khartoum, Sudan (14.5N, 33.5E) was imaged with infrared film as part an experiment to compare the merits of color film versus color in |
| Description |
This herringbone pattern of irrigated agricultural fields near Khartoum, Sudan (14.5N, 33.5E) was imaged with infrared film as part an experiment to compare the merits of color film versus color infrared film. Color film presents the image as it appears to the eye whereas color infrared film has an excellent haze penetration and vegetation definition capability. See color film image STS049-77-072 for a detailed scene description. |
| Date Taken |
1992-05-16 |
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Sudan's Blue and While Nile,
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| Title |
Sudan's Blue and While Nile, Africa |
| Description |
This vertical view shows the smaller Blue Nile merging with the While Nile. Khartoum, the capital city of Sudan, lies at the confluence (on both sides of the Nile). Water from the two rivers allow vast areas in between to be irrigated. The checker-board pattern along the top of the frame is just a small part of the El Gezira cotton-growing project, one of the largest in the world. |
| Date Taken |
1995-02-11 |
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Sudan, Africa as seen from S
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| Title |
Sudan, Africa as seen from STS-66 shuttle Atlantis |
| Description |
Agricultural patterns are distinctly visible in this near-vertical false color infrared photography taken in November 1994. The area depicted on the photograph is south of Khartoum between the White and Blue Nile Rivers. By far the most important irrigation project in sub-Saharan Africa, both large and small scale agricultural enterprises have been developed using water transported from the perennial Nile Rivers. Hundreds of small rectangular fields and water-filled canals can be seen in this photograph. |
| Date Taken |
1994-11-14 |
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