Saririaky in Madagascar: a patch of moonscape photographed from the ISS

In southern Madagascar, a pale expanse of rock stands out sharply from its surroundings: the Saririaky anorthosite massif. A member of Expedition 75 aboard the International Space Station photographed it on Aug. 28, 2026, using a Nikon Z9 camera with a 400-millimeter lens. NASA published the image with an explanation, and ScienceDaily reported on it on Oct. 11. The exposed rock covers about 100 square kilometers.

Anorthosite forms when molten material cools and solidifies deep underground. The rock is common on the moon, where it makes up much of the bright highlands, which are more than 4 billion years old. The Madagascar massif formed in the late Precambrian, at least 600 million years ago, according to NASA. Very similar rock is found, for example, in the Beartooth Mountains of Montana.

Saririaky lies in what geologists call a ductile shear zone, where the surrounding rocks are heavily deformed. They record ancient continental collisions during the formation of the supercontinent Gondwana. About 60 kilometers to the north, a second anorthosite massif sits in the same zone. Some researchers think the two were once connected and were pulled apart by tectonic stretching, NASA said.