The Great Lakes of Africa

This radar image highlights portions of three of the lakes located in the Western Rift of the Great Rift Valley, a geological fault system of Southwest Asia and East Africa: Lake Edward (top), Lake Kivu (middle) and Lake Tanganyika (bottom). The series of lakes in and around the Great Rift Valley are referred to as the Great Lakes of Africa. Envisat acquired this image on 24 September 2007 with its Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) instrument.