Giant ‘chessboard’ surrounds Idaho river in bizarre astronaut photo — Earth from space
Rapid facts
Where is it? Whitetail Butte, Priest River, Idaho [48.411815594, -116.84501960]
What is in the photo? A forest section divided into squares due to a land -based land management system
Who took the photo? An anonymous astronaut aboard the international space station
When was it taken? January 4, 2017
This intriguing photo of the astronaut shows a plot of land in Idaho which is striking a giant failure when seen in space. The strange model comes from an environmental initiative dating from around 200 years.
The air shooting shows land along the Priest river in the mountains of northern Idaho, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) south of the Canadian border. The nearest point of interest is Whitail Butte, a point of view for forest fires, which is positioned on a large turn in the river (almost halfway along the navigable lane on the photo).
The “failure” is about 5 kilometers (8 km) at its widest point and contains about 185 squares, although they are not all visible in this photo. Each square covers about 1.4 million square feet (130,000 square meters) – about the same size as 24 football fields.
This model results from a forest management initiative based on the grid created in the 1800s. The alternative squares were eliminated for their wood, leaving enough trees to support the forest ecosystem while new trees are growing, according to Observatory of the Terre de la Nasa.
New trees are then planted in empty squares. When the trees have matured, the trees on alternating squares are harvested and the cycle starts again. This photo was probably taken only a few years after the most recent harvest.
The pattern was accentuated by snow, which moved above young trees in “empty” white squares. Braking is also visible during the summer. However, there is much less distinction between certain clear and dark squares, which appear to be various shades of green.
In relation: See all the best images of the land of space
This photo was taken just before sunset, so some mountain sides shine while others are covered with long shadows due to the low corner of the sun.
The Priest river, which is part of the Columbia river basin, was previously used to transport wood from this region to sawmills in other parts of Idaho and beyond. This has been traditionally done by “log driving”, which involved floating rafts of logs on the surface of the river, often with people standing on top and using long posts to redirect the rafts and prevent them from blurring.
However, this practice was interrupted in the 1990s to allow more recreational use of the river.
The logs are now transported by road, and if you look carefully, you can see the weak line of a trucking road specially designed diagonally through several squares of the checkered forest.
