We previously featured the dying Aral Sea back in January 2006, but since then much of the area has been updated with high resolution satellite imagery. Which means we can now see several ships, abandoned in the middle of a desert, a bit like the one in Close Encounters.

Read our original article for an explanation why these ships are here, and for links to other things to see in the area.

Thanks to Gyorgy Takacs.

Baikonur Cosmodrome is the world’s oldest and largest operational space launch facility where you can clearly see the Energia, Soyuz and Proton launch platforms. Located in what is now Kazakhstan, the facility was named Baikonur to confuse the West of its exact location, as the town of Baikonur is some 320km away (although anyone who has flown on the bright orange budget airline would have expected this).

On the base we can also see a full-scale model of the Ptichka - the second of Russia’s Space Shuttle designs. The Ptichka construction began in 1988 and followed the Buran, which we’ve previously spotted. The name means ‘little bird’ in Russian, but was only a nickname as the shuttle was cancelled just before it was completed and formally named.

The real Ptichka is kept indoors at Baikonur Cosmodrome, as was the original Buran shuttle. However the only Soviet craft to enter space was destroyed in 2002 when the roof above it collapsed, crushing the Buran and its mockup of the Energia booster rocket. I could be wrong but it was probably this big building with no roof. Can you spot a bit of Buran?

Thanks: Georgi Petrov (x3), dimuskin, Tesla_HV, & Hamish CJ (Get me pictures?)

Sandwiched between Kazakhstan to the north and Uzbekistan to the south, this is the dying Aral Sea. Wikipedia says:

Since the 1960s the Aral Sea has been shrinking, as the rivers that feed it (the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya) were diverted by the Soviet Union for irrigation.

In 1960, the Aral Sea was the world’s fourth-largest lake, but today it has lost 80% of its volume. You can clearly see how much the water has receeded recently by comparing the satellite image with Google’s own map view (there’s no high-resolution imagery, otherwise we might be able to see some abandoned ships), and even more so by comparing it to this satellite image taken in 1985.

To make matters even worse, the ecosystem of the Aral Sea has been nearly destroyed due to high levels of salinity, industrial projects and fertilizer runoff. Not to mention a biological weapons laboratory on the Vozrozhdeniya Island…

For more information on this fascinating environmental catastrophe, make sure you read the Wikipedia page.

Thanks to Daniel Pereira, Phil Gross and Pablo Bleyer.