Tens of millions of years ago, the San Juan River in what is now southern Utah shared some characteristics with today’s Mississippi River. In a bygone geologic era, the San Juan flowed across a relatively flat plain that formed in an ancient marine environment. Unencumbered by rugged terrain, the river was free to take a long, meandering path<\/a> on its gradual journey<\/a> downslope.<\/p>\n But this part of the San Juan changed when geologic forces pushed the Colorado Plateau upward. Some experts think that within the later stages of this \u201cstill-enigmatic<\/a>\u201d history, starting around 20 million years ago, the plateau\u2019s rise elevated the San Juan\u2019s headwaters<\/a>, which increased the river\u2019s gradient<\/a> and sped its flow. With that, the water\u2019s erosive power intensified, and the river started carving its winding path deeper and deeper through 300-million-year-old rock.<\/p>\n Today, on its westward path to Lake Powell, the San Juan River flows through an impressive series of entrenched meanders, also known as \u201cgoosenecks.\u201d An astronaut aboard the International Space Station photographed the stark desert topography on October 6, 2026.<\/p>\n In Utah\u2019s Goosenecks State Park<\/a>, the river runs through a canyon 1,000 feet (300 meters) deep. In places, it nearly loops back on itself, making horseshoe-shaped bends. One section is so curvy that the river travels 5.5 miles (8.9 kilometers) between two points that are only 1.3 miles (2.1 kilometers) apart as the crow\u2014nay, goose\u2014flies.<\/p>\n While the goosenecks are an unusual geologic wonder to behold by day, the area\u2019s dark skies are a spectacle by night. Goosenecks State Park\u2019s remote, high-desert location and 360-degree views of the sky helped earn it an International Dark Sky Park<\/a> designation in 2021. According to DarkSky International, features such as the Double Cluster in Perseus<\/a> and the Messier 24 star cloud<\/a> in the Sagittarius spiral arm of the Milky Way are visible to the unaided eye from the park. In November 2026<\/a>, dark skies offer the chance to view several meteor showers, with the Northern Taurids, Southern Taurids, and Leonids reaching their peaks throughout the month.<\/p>\n Astronaut photograph\u00a0ISS075-E-188830<\/a>\u00a0was acquired on October 6, 2026, with a Nikon Z9 digital camera using a focal length of 400 millimeters. It is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations Facility and the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit at NASA Johnson Space Center. The image was taken by a member of the\u00a0Expedition 75<\/a>\u00a0crew. The image has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast, and lens artifacts have been removed. The\u00a0International Space Station Program<\/a>\u00a0supports the laboratory as part of the\u00a0ISS National Lab<\/a>\u00a0to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public, and to make those images freely available on the internet. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA\/JSC\u00a0Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth<\/a>. Photo by Bob Wick (BLM)<\/a>, via Flickr. Story by Lindsey Doermann.<\/em><\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/assets.science.nasa.gov\/content\/dam\/science\/esd\/eo\/images\/iotd\/2026\/taking-a-gander-at-utah\u2019s-goosenecks\/ISS075-E-188830_lrg.jpg\/jcr:content\/renditions\/cq5dam.thumbnail.319.319.png\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n