The Al Khufrah Oasis in southeastern Libya (near the Egyptian border) is one of Libya’s largest agricultural projects, and is an easy-to-recognize landmark for orbiting astronauts aboard the International Space Station. Because only about 2 percent of Libya’s land receives enough rainfall to be cultivated, this project uses fossil water from a large underground aquifer. The Libyan government also has a plan called the Great Man Made River to pump and transport these groundwater reserves to the coast to support Libya’s growing population and industrial development.

Bright reflections from Arecibo radar illumination of polar regions of Mercury may be from ices of water or other liquids located in crater areas of permanent shadow. (Photo courtesy NASA/ Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory/Arecibo)