EARTH Central Asia -- 09 Oct 2012 -- The Himalayas - which began forming about 50 million years ago when the Indian subcontinent started to collide with Eurasia

EARTH Central Asia -- 09 Oct 2012 -- The Himalayas - which began forming about 50 million years ago when the Indian subcontinent started to collide with Eurasia - are arguably the world’s best-known snow-capped mountain range. But just to the north, beyond the Tarim Basin, the same tectonic forces that built the Himalayas also produced the Tien Shan, a similarly vast range of snow-capped peaks that extends 2,500 kilometers (1,500 miles) through Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and western China. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired this view of the sprawling range on October 9, 2012. It shows glacial ice with a layer of fresh snow covering the ice in many areas -- Picture by Lightroom Photos/NASA