The Sundarban 
The Richat Construction looks savor an ogle in the Saharan Desert.
(Image credit ranking: Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2025), processed by ESA)
In the heart of Mauritania’s Sahara Desert, surrounded by an ocean of sand, lies a colossal stone spiral that appears almost too excellent to be natural. From orbit, in a contemporary image taken by the European Space Agency‘s Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite mission, it looks savor a target etched into the desert: the Richat Construction, better identified as the Behold of the Sahara.
What is it?
On the flooring, its rings are hard to appreciate; dunes, heat haze, and uneven terrain all conspire to cloak the stout shape. Nevertheless from space, especially in the images taken by the Copernicus satellite, the construction appears as a pains of concentric circles, savor ripples frozen in rock.
For years, its near-excellent circle led scientists to suspect a dramatic origin: a meteorite impact. A formation that spherical, in the heart of nowhere, had to be a crater — or so it appeared.
Where is it?
This image was taken over the Adrar station of northern Mauritania.
A false-color image of the Richat Construction shows its chemical composition. (Image credit ranking: Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2025), processed by ESA)Why is it amazing?
Further fieldwork and analysis overturned the impact crater theory, as researchers found no indicators of surprised quartz, melted rock, or other telltale traces of a high-energy collision. Instead, the Richat Construction became out to be something extra delicate and, in many ways, extra impressive: a deeply eroded geological dome.
Tens of millions of years ago, a large bubble of molten rock pushed up beneath the surface, gently doming the overlying sedimentary layers. Over time, wind, water, and sand did what they achieve ideal in the Sahara: sandblast and carve away the softer rocks. Harder rocks, savor quartzite-rich sandstones, resisted erosion and remained as high ridges, whereas the softer layers between them have been feeble into valleys.
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The end result is a natural corrupt-fragment of Earth’s crust, peeled back in rings. The outer rings mostly consist of extra erosion-resistant rock, whereas the interior exposes older layers that as soon as lay deep underground. Geologists estimate that parts of this construction are at least 100 million years primitive.
In the false-color composite images from the Copernicus satellite mission, the tale of the landscape turns into mighty clearer as explicit wavelengths of gentle are combined to specialise in diversified materials and surface features: the more difficult quartzite sandstones appear in shades of crimson and pink, tracing the outer rings and inner ridges; darker patches between these rings mark zones of softer, extra eroded rock; and tiny crimson specks in the southern part of the construction reveal individual trees and bushes following a dry riverbed that snakes into the Behold. From the vantage point of Earth orbit, the Behold continues to stare back at us: a giant geological bull’s-ogle, etched into the Sahara, quietly recording a deep historical past of Earth written in stone.
Want to learn extra?
You can learn extra about Earth-observing satellites and the Copernicus program.
Kenna Hughes-Castleberry is the Screech material Manager at Space.com. Formerly, she was the Science Communicator at JILA, a physics research institute. Kenna is also a freelance science journalist. Her beats include quantum abilities, AI, animal intelligence, corvids, and cephalopods.
