Decades ago, Captain Kirk faced off against the Gorn on the uncharted desert planet Metron. But as we can see in new satellite imagery from NASA, that mysterious rocky world can actually be found right here on Earth in California.
What is it?
In this new image captured by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on NASA's Landsat 9 satellite, you can see the wide variety of rock and vegetation in the area around Vasquez Rocks Natural Area County Park in southern California.
The 25-million-year-old Vasquez Rocks is a magnificent natural area with an incredible range of unique, large rocks jutting out of the ground. In this false-color image, you can see the area in shortwave-infrared and near-infrared wavelengths that show the differences in vegetation across the landscape.
And this location hides some amazing history. Not only is Vasquez Rocks home to incredible rock formations and desert vegetation, it is also where Captain Kirk fought the Gorn in Star Trek the Original Series. It's not a surprise the series chose this location for its infamous fight scene (among many other Trek scenes), as the massive, sun-bleached boulders pointing to the sky and barren landscape give it a distinctly alien feel.
Why is it incredible?
While the rocky landscape of Vasquez Rocks is firmly fixed here on Earth, it has consistently made history as the backdrop to a whole host of iconic science fiction moments.
Indeed, Star Trek is one as Vasquez Rocks has been used for filming in a whole host of Trek episodes. It was even Spock's home world of Vulcan in the films Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and Star Trek (2009).
But beyond Star Trek, the site has been used for filming sci-fi classics like Galaxy Quest, Battlestar Galactica and Planet of the Apes in addition to a whole host of cowboy movies and more.
It turns out that right here on Earth, we can find perfectly good alien worlds.
