Moon-Like Madagascar

What happened

An astronaut aboard the International Space Station captured this photo of the Saririaky anorthosite massif on August 28, 2026. A bright lens of anorthosite, a rock type prevalent on the lunar surface, is cradled within sheared rocks in the country’s south.

The igneous rock anorthosite, common on the Moon’s surface, is visible from Earth with the unaided eye as the light-colored, highly reflective areas known as the lunar highlands . Anorthosite also crops up across Earth’s surface, from eastern Canada and Scandinavia to southern India and Madagascar, where it forms a striking round feature.

Anorthosite is an intrusive igneous rock—formed from magma that cools beneath the surface—made up of large mineral crystals. Scientists think the massif seen here formed in the late Precambrian, at least 600 million years ago.