Earth as a Classroom - Team Blogs

While this remote island does have some musk oxen, small birds and mammals - and some plant life, in many places, there is almost no easily visible life at all. In those places, the surface looks very much like what our robots have seen on Mars. This is one of the reasons why many scientists and engineers find Devon Island a useful place to do research that will help us explore Mars (and the Moon) one day.

Image: Airborne synthetic aperture radar image of Haughton Crater. North is to the top and the crater is about 20 km wide. Note that the Haughton River breaches the crater rim to the northeast and flows into Thomas Lee Inlet.

Devon Island is located in the Territory of Nunavut in Canada less than a thousand miles from the North Pole. Devon Island is also the largest uninhabited island on Earth, with a surface area of approximately 66,800 square kilometers.

One of the prime reasons why space researchers and planetary geologists are interested in Devon Island is that it has a large meteor crater - Haughton crater. Haughton crater is named after Reverend Samuel Haughton, a british naturalist who wrote the first account of the geology of this region in the 1850s.

During a short warm season in July temperatures may reach 10°C (50°F). However, in the winter, the temperature can drop as low -50°C (-58°F). These satellite images are used to help predit what sort of weather will occur on Devon Island. Use this map (enlarge) to find the shape of Devon Island on the different weather satellite images.

This is what the weather is like in nearby Resolute Bay on Cornwallis Island

All Weather satellite images courtesy of Weather Canada