Chinguetti and Ouadane are UNESCO World Heritage Sites because they are vestiges of the once-flourishing civilizations that existed during the era of the Trans-Sahara salt trade.

Many scientists believed the same thing when the Eye of the Sahara was first spotted from space in the mid-'60s.) Advertisement Visit Atlas Obscura for more on the Richat Structure.

Northwest of the eye is with Kediet ej Jill Mountain, Mauritania’s highest peak (nearly 1000 meters). The mountain has a large concentration of magnetite, giving it a blueish tinge and totally ...

This spectacular ancient geological formation was used in the 1960s by Gemini astronauts as a landmark. Geologists initially believed the Eye of the Sahara, aka the Richat Structure, to be an ...

A massive circular rock formation marks the desert in Mauritania like a target—it’s the “Eye of the Sahara.” Easier seen from above than from the ground, the Richat Structure (or Guelb er Richat), as ...

A vast desert, filled with billions of tons of sandy soil and an area spanning four countries, is the world's largest continuous sand desert.

For millennia, the Eye of the Sahara was hiding in plain sight. That's because this huge and mysterious geologic formation is hard to spot from ground level, walking around on Earth. It turns out ...

It’s not hard to see why people think the Sahara Desert’s most stunning geological phenomenon was a gift from outer space. The Richat Structure – more poetically known as the Eye of the ...

Some believe it’s an ancient crash site. Sure enough, the photo has gotten more than 2,800 reactions and comments as of July 19, including from some who assumed it was extraterrestrial in origin.

The circular formation in this photo is the Richat Structure of Mauritania, which “has captured the attention of astronauts for about as long as NASA has sent humans into orbit around Earth ...