See if you can tell if these landscapes are on Earth or another world
We often take the beauty of the Earth and its alien landscapes for granted.
But could you say whether a particular geologic feature comes from our planet or from another object in the solar system?
MailOnline has put together a selection of images from Earth and beyond to test your knowledge whether you are looking at our world or at Mars, Venus or one of the many distant moons in the solar system.
Of course, it could even be our own moon.
Take the quiz below and see how you’re doing. The answers are below each photo, including details of exactly what you’re looking at.
1. Earth or Beyond?
Mars-like: This landscape may be many people’s vision of what it’s like on the Red Planet
Answer: It’s the Earth!
Although it looks like Mars, this is in Spain.
Bardenas Reales is a semi-desert natural area, or badlands, of some 42,000 hectares in southeastern Navarre. It is just over an hour’s drive from the city of Zaragoza.
Soils in Bardenas Reales are made up of clay, chalk and sandstone and have been eroded by water and wind.
This has created the beautiful ravines, plateaus and other surprising shapes, including isolated hills called cabezos.
Game of Thrones fans may also recognize it as the scene for the Dothraki Sea.
2. Earth or Beyond?
water world? This appears to be a scene from one of the distant moons in our solar system
Answer: It’s Earth again!
This may look like one of Saturn’s icy moons, but it’s in Brazil.
The Lençois Maranhenses National Park contains huge white dunes that dot the landscape, interspersed with crystal clear lagoons that are filled with rainwater from May to September.
Lençois translates into Portuguese as ‘sheets’, named after how the white dunes appear.
The breathtaking landscape stretches for 70 km along the coast and more than 50 km inland.
3. Earth or Beyond?
Sandy outlook: This sequence of images appears to show a mountainous region – but is it on Earth or another world?
Answer: It’s over!
These breathtaking photos were taken on Saturn’s moon Titan.
They may look like a sandy ridge on Earth, but they were actually captured by the European Space Agency’s Huygens probe, which landed on Earth in 2005.
The photos show the view looking north, south, east and west at five different heights above Titan’s surface.
Huygens is designed to collect data for a few hours in the moon’s atmosphere, as well as for a short time on the surface. It managed to transmit data about 90 minutes after landing before losing contact.
4. Earth or Beyond?
Scars: These frozen features may be somewhere on Earth, but are they actually anywhere else?
Answer: This one is over
The fascinating red scars that dot this landscape are among the smallest of the four Galilean moons orbiting Jupiter, Europa.
They are actually cracks and ridges that mark faint lines in the moon’s icy crust, emphasized and exacerbated by the rising and falling of tides due to Jupiter’s gravity.
This photo was taken by the US Space Agency Galileo spacecraft in the late 1990s.
5. Earth or Beyond?
Sunrise here or elsewhere? This desert landscape has a very Mars-like appearance
Answer: Earth
Another landscape with a Mars-like appearance, but this is again on our planet.
Wadi Rum, also known as the Valley of the Moon, is a desert in southern Jordan that covers about 717 square kilometers.
It has red dunes, fascinating rock formations and valleys over 1700 meters high.
In fact, the view is so Mars-like that if you visited it you’d think you were experiencing what Matt Damon’s character did in The Martian when it was left for dead on the Red Planet.
The Wadi Rum Protected Area is popular with tourists who enjoy hiking and mountaineering and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2011.
6. Earth or Beyond?
Clouds, volcanoes, mountains or something else? Is this image of Earth or another world in the solar system?
Answer: continue
This one might be a bit easier. While you could say it looks like angry sun-kissed clouds or an overview of some mountains on Earth, this is actually what it looks like on Venus, our planet’s evil twin sister.
The image has been dubbed the “Crater Farm” by NASA because it shows the mysterious stratification of volcanic activity and impact craters on the second planet from the sun.
It was created in the early 1990s by the Magellan deep space probe.
However, while it looks fascinating, the scenery is best viewed from afar. That’s because Venus is a hellish world where surface temperatures are high enough to melt lead and the atmosphere is thick with carbon dioxide.
7. Earth or Beyond?
Ice Cave: Is this on Earth or perhaps one of the frozen moons orbiting Jupiter, Saturn or Neptune?
Answer: Earth
Much attention has been paid to how extraterrestrial life could exist in our solar system deep in a subsurface ocean in one of the icy moons of Saturn or Jupiter.
And this image above certainly looks like it could be of an alien watery tundra.
In fact, it captures the second largest glacier in Europe – Iceland’s Vatnajokull Glacier.
This stunning natural wonder is home to a number of ice caves like the one above and is over 900 meters deep in some places.
Those aren’t the only secrets it has, either. The glacier actually hides several active volcanoes below the surface – and perhaps more worryingly, geologists think an eruption is long overdue!
8. Earth or Beyond?
Eye of the storm: is this Jupiter, Venus or somewhere on Earth? The vibrant colors make it a stunning spectacle
Answer: It’s Earth again!
You’d think this colorful, eyeball-like creation would be more at home on Venus, Jupiter, or one of the solar system’s distant moons.
But actually it is the Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone National Park.
Primarily in Wyoming, the park also spreads across parts of Montana and Idaho, with this thermal feature being the most photographed part of it.
The spectacularly colorful ring measures 200 to 300 feet (60 to 90 meters) in diameter and 121 feet (36 meters) deep.
It is a highly sought after place for microscopic organisms known as thermophiles, which thrive in warm environments.
The hardiest species live in the hottest water in mid-spring and are colorless or yellow, while the orange, brown and green thermophiles live in the slightly cooler water around the edge.
9. Earth or Beyond?
View of the desert: Yet another image very similar to Mars. But was it taken on Mars or here on Earth?
Answer: Mars
After several previous Mars-like landscapes on Earth or another world in our solar system, this one is finally from the Red Planet.
It was taken by NASA’s Mars rover Spirit, which operated from 2004 to 2010.
After climbing Husband Hill, Spirit spent over four years exploring locations within this view, including the ‘Comanche’ outcrop and the ‘Home Plate’ area.
The summit of Husband Hill is a broad plateau of rocky outcrops and windblown drifts about 100 meters (300 ft) higher than the surrounding plains of Gusev Crater, where Spirit made landfall in January 2004.
10. Earth or Beyond?
Volcanic activity: Is this burning lava landscape on Earth or somewhere like Jupiter’s moon Io
Answer: Earth
You might think this burning lava landscape is more like Jupiter’s moon Io, the most volcanically active place in our solar system.
But actually it’s from one of our own planet’s volcanic hotspots – Hawaii.
While not nearly as active as Io, which is pockmarked with volcanoes capable of spewing plumes 90 miles vertically, one Hawaiian volcano bears an uncanny resemblance to its sister fissure on Jupiter’s moon.
NASA scientists reviewed images captured by the Galileo spacecraft to determine that Io’s volcano Prometheus bears similarities to Kilauea, located on the Big Island.
The two both havelong-lived eruptions’ and flows that travel through lava tubes.