Our Amazing Planet EarthLists about the beautiful, fascinating, sometimes terrifying features and living things that naturally developed on this spinning rock we all call home.
Updated September 23, 2021 21.1K votes 2.2K voters 270.9K views
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Vote for the places that you can't believe are real/actually here on earth
As any good fan of sci-fi knows, few things can make or break the allure of an alien planet or a strange dimension like a great atmosphere. After all, what Star Wars lover can’t immediately picture the barren planet where Luke Skywalker grew up? Who can watch Lord of the Rings without cringing at the thought of the treacherous peaks of Mordor? So cool are the landscapes of many of these fictional worlds, that it may even be tempting to think of our own planet as a little boring in comparison. Not so fast! We’ve collected a series of weird landscape photos that’ll show you why Earth is way cooler than you may think.
Below you’ll find a collection of Earthly landscapes that look like they’re from another planet entirely. So otherworldly are some of these places in fact, that they’ve been used by NASA for testing out equipment bound for missions to planets like Mars. Others among these weird landscapes have also been heavily utilized by Hollywood in order to create the atmospheres for fictional planets in movies. After all, the Star Warscrew wasn’t exactly able to catch a few shots in outer space- Luke’s childhood planet was actually a place called Chott el Djerid in Tunisia.
So come on in and get ready to see the world in a whole new light. We’ll show you weird landscapes ranging from a pink lake to chocolate hills to a beach that sparkles at night like something from a fairytale. At the end of the day, these beautiful landscape photos might just convince you that Earth isn’t such a boring place after all.
Though this wild-looking geyser is actually on a patch of private land near the Black Rock Desert in Nevada, there are still ways to get a peek. State Route 34 functions as a viewpoint for those hoping to see the otherworldly looking formation.
Not only is Russia's Lake Baikal the oldest freshwater lake on Earth, it's also so large that it contains about one-fifth of the world's freshwater! Around March every year, a mixture of unequal pressure and varying temperatures causes cracking in the Lake's surface, which sometimes result in these cool glass-looking formations.
The city of Pamukkale, which means "Cotton Castle" in Turkish, is packed full of natural hot springs, which create these cool terraces out of sedimentary rocks.
Though one look at a picture of Wyoming's Grand Prismatic Spring may leave you swearing it's photoshopped, the colors you see here are all natural. These gorgeous colors are actually caused by cyanobacteria.
It turns out fire and ice actually mix quite nicely at times. This cave, formed in the glacial fields at the base of Mutnovsky Volcano, demonstrates the beauty of opposites attracting.
Who ever thought worms could be so gorgeous? That's right, the sparkling roofs of these New Zealand caves are due to the efforts of thousands of tiny glowworms which emit a luminous light.
