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SYFY WIRE Bad Astronomy

Spooky Australian Salt Lake Wishes You a Happy Halloween

By Phil Plait
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I find it very funny that our brains love to take semirandom patterns and see them as faces or other familiar figures. And since this week is Halloween, I want to show you some of the spookier examples Iâve seen of this psychological phenomenon, which is called pareidolia.

First up this week is a ghostly salt lake in western Australia, in a shot taken by an astronaut aboard the International Space Station:

Boo! I like how it looks like a ghost, eyes wide, mouth open, and arms raised, perhaps chasing a hapless victim to the right. The lake itself is clearly very salty; the shallow water silvery and white salt deposits shining in the sunlight.

And while this is clearly a spirited lake (haha! Ha!) itâs also something of a mystery: I donât where or which one it is. I found it posted on the Google Plus feed for Fragile Oasis, a website curated by astronauts who want to raise awareness about our lovely and delicate planet. The caption merely says itâs located in Australiaâs Gibson Desert, and it was taken on Oct. 7. The ISS path does take it over Australia on that day, but it flew over several times, and different regions are visible during each pass. I spent more time than I care to admit scanning that desert in Google maps looking for the lake, and I have a pretty good eye for pattern recognition (partly due to years spent going over Hubble images). Still, no joy.

It doesnât help that the desert is more than 100,000 square kilometers, thereâs no guarantee the photo has north up, thereâs no scale bar, and that part of Australia is dotted with perhaps thousands of lakes, both salty and dry. In fact, many of them look like ghosts, which was delightful, but seriously not helpful. To be honest, I canât even be sure this is in the Gibson desert; much of Western Australia has similar terrain, so the caption might be off.

If you happen to recognize this lake, or see it on an online map, let me know! If and when someone IDs it, Iâll update this post. Thanks! (We have a winner! See below.)

And, of course: Happy Halloween.

UPDATE, Oct. 28, 2013, at 16:00 UTC: Well, that didn't take long! BABloggee Andrew Burns identified our dearly departed briny ponds as Lakes Hazlett (left) and Wills (right). They're about 25 kilometers top-to-bottom each. (In the above picture, north is to the right). The two lakes are located just west of the border between Western Australia and the Northern Territory. Good eye, Andrew, and thanks!

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