How often do we see all of those posed in one photograph? From space, it’s not as hard to assemble such a delegation. This photograph of part of the Middle East was a view from the window of the Space Shuttle Discovery crewed by Mission STS-115 on a 12-day assembly mission to the ISS (International Space Station). STS-115, which returned in September 2006, was the shuttle’s 19th mission to the ISS.
This area of the Middle East is geographically considered Southwest Asia. Visible are the eastern Mediterranean Sea bordered here by Lebanon, Israel, Egypt’s Sinai and northern Egypt. Also in view are southwestern Syria, Jordan, the Golan Heights, the Sea of Galilee, the Jordan River, and the Dead Sea. To the west is northeastern Egypt along the Suez Canal, which borders the sandy, triangular Sinai Peninsula that bifurcates the Red Sea, creating the Gulf of Aqaba (east) and Gulf of Suez (west).
For more aerial photographs of Earth from space, see Cape Cod and surroundings, greater San Diego, as well as the Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights.
(Photo Credit: NASA).
