# @europeanspaceagency on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/Dc3H2i0DLZD
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/69943289-europeanspaceagency-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/86bf177a76.jpg
- **Posted:** 2026-09-04T10:00:34.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** J.L.Lopez (@xandler80) — https://gondola.cc/xandler80

## Caption

Can you spot a UNESCO World Heritage Site from space?
We can, and we’ve got nine new ones to prove it 🛰️

@UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee wrapped in July its 48th session in Busan, South Korea. The World Heritage List now holds 1 273 sites across 173 countries. We’ve teamed up with UNESCO to show you nine of the new inscriptions, the way only a satellite can see them.

First up: Mount Olympus in Greece. The ancient Greeks believed the gods lived here. Homer and Hesiod wrote about it, and Mount Olympus, home to Zeus, the Muses and the Graces, became one of the defining symbols of Greek civilisation.

It’s also Greece’s highest mountain, and its position, close to the sea and rising sharply from it, creates a microclimate found almost nowhere else in the country. Glacial cirques, limestone cliffs, sinkholes carved by water, and jagged ridges like the Mytikas-Stefani complex all sit within a few kilometres of each other. Deep gorges such as the Enipeas still show the mountain shifting today. Through past ice ages, Olympus sheltered forest species that disappeared elsewhere, and it remains one of the Mediterranean’s richest spots for plants found nowhere else on Earth.

This satellite image shows why: snow packed into folds and ridgelines, forest pressing right up against bare rock, a mountain still being shaped by the forces that built it.

📸 image contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2026), processed by ESA; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

Rock Mosques and Associated Sacred Sites of Mangystau, Kazakhstan

On the Mangystau Peninsula, five sacred sites are carved straight into the rock.

Beket-Ata, Shopan-Ata, Karaman-Ata, Shakpak-Ata and Sultan-Epe: five “underground mosques” built between the 12th and 18th centuries, each one tied to a Sufi master. Locals cut them into caves, cliffs and the ground itself, in a semi-desert landscape shaped by nomadic life on the Mangystau and Ustyurt plateaus. Pilgrims have walked these paths for centuries.

This Sentinel-2 image actually holds three of these five sites. Shakpak-Ata sits near the coast, close to the top of this frame, with Sultan-Epe just 11km further along the same stretch of shore. Karaman-Ata lies

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## Credits

| Name | Username | Profile | Role |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| UNESCO | @unesco | https://gondola.cc/unesco | Government Organization |
| ESA Earth Observation | @esa_earth | https://gondola.cc/esa_earth | Government Organization |
| ESA - European Space Agency | @europeanspaceagency | https://gondola.cc/europeanspaceagency | Government Organization |
| J.L.Lopez | @xandler80 | https://gondola.cc/xandler80 | Producer |
| J.L.Lopez | @xandler80 | https://gondola.cc/xandler80 | Content Producer |
| J.L.Lopez | @xandler80 | https://gondola.cc/xandler80 | Editor |
| J.L.Lopez | @xandler80 | https://gondola.cc/xandler80 | Social Media Manager |
| J.L.Lopez | @xandler80 | https://gondola.cc/xandler80 | Senior Social Media Manager |
| J.L.Lopez | @xandler80 | https://gondola.cc/xandler80 | Writer |
| J.L.Lopez | @xandler80 | https://gondola.cc/xandler80 | Publisher |
| J.L.Lopez | @xandler80 | https://gondola.cc/xandler80 | Community Manager |
| J.L.Lopez | @xandler80 | https://gondola.cc/xandler80 | Copywriter |
| J.L.Lopez | @xandler80 | https://gondola.cc/xandler80 | Social Media Coordinator |

## Tags

europeanspaceagency, earthfromspace

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