Grand Canyon Country Reveals Jaw-Dropping Scenery

The Colorado River from space on March 12, 2013. (Image credit: NASA Earth Observatory)

A jagged scar etched in copper-colored rocks, the Colorado River's channel curls through one of the world's most scenic landscapes.

Draining seven states and two countries, the river is one of the Southwest's most important water sources. One of its major reservoirs, Lake Powell, can be seen from space in a photo snapped March 12 by an astronaut aboard the International Space Station.

An abandoned river meander, called The Rincon, stands out like a pimple at the left edge of the photo. The long, knife-sharp edge of the snow-dusted Straight Cliffs, a plateau in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, divides the middle.

Though the Colorado River now cuts through rocks nearly 2 billion years old in the Grand Canyon, the river is only 50 million years old. Its waters headed to the southwest or the north of the current Grand Canyon — geologists disagree on the details — until about 5 million years ago.

Email Becky Oskin or follow her @beckyoskin. Follow us @OAPlanet, Facebook or Google +. Original article on LiveScience's OurAmazingPlanet.

Becky Oskin covers Earth science, climate change and space, as well as general science topics. Becky was a science reporter at Live Science and The Pasadena Star-News; she has freelanced for New Scientist and the American Institute of Physics. She earned a master's degree in geology from Caltech, a bachelor's degree from Washington State University, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz.