Spanning about 3.6 million square miles (9.4 million square kilometers) the Sahara —Arabic for "The Great Desert" — is the largest hot desert on Earth, third in size to the cold deserts in Antarctica and the Arctic. The Sahara stretches across most of North Africa, and plays host to winds that can whip up punishing sand storms. Little grows there, but this harsh environment is home to scorpions, snakes, and more than 40 species of rodents, as well as mammals like hyenas, jackals, antelopes and foxes.
Latest about sahara desert
'The stage was now set for the birth and growth of desert dunes': How the Sahara turned from a vast forest to the arid landscape we see today
"A very remarkable series of events took place during the late Miocene between 5.96 and 5.33 million years ago."
World's 1st 'boomerang meteorite' — a rock that left Earth, spent millennia in space, then returned — possibly discovered in the Sahara Desert
The composition of an unusual meteorite suggests that it formed on Earth, spent thousands of years in space, then reentered the atmosphere. But some experts disagree.
Massive bulldog-faced dinosaur was like a T. rex on steroids
A hefty abelisaurid is the fourth large, predatory dinosaur discovered in Egypt's Bahariya Formation, alongside other sizable Cretaceous carnivores.
Alien stone in Egyptian desert came from rare supernova, scientists say
The rock likely formed from the merging of dust with the remnants of the two stars involved in the explosion.
The Sahara: Earth's largest hot desert
Reference The Sahara desert is the largest hot desert in the world, covering nearly all of northern Africa.
Ice covers the Sahara Desert for just 4th time in 50 years
The dunes of the northwestern Sahara desert were streaked with ice on Tuesday, creating a surreal landscape
Satellite sees 'Godzilla' dust plume sweep across the Atlantic Ocean
Each year, dust from the Sahara Desert blows off Africa and across the Atlantic, but most years that plume isn't so massive it's nicknamed "Godzilla."
Dust plume bigger than Texas crashes into the US
Air quality could reach dangerous levels across a wide chunk of the continental U.S. and Caribbean this weekend as a rare, giant Saharan dust storm reaches the U.S.
