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This is a picture of Pemba Island, one of the islands of Zanzibar, the semi-autonomous region of Tanzania, taken by ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen from the International Space Station.<\/p>\n
On the north-eastern corner of the island there is a mysterious looking structure which appears to have been carved into the ground. It did not show up on satellite pictures until 2022 and seemingly nothing could immediately explain the odd-shaped figure measuring about three by two kilometres.<\/p>\n
Andreas reached out to his followers on social media<\/a> and asked for help to solve this mystery. Soon, many good guesses came flooding in, from seaweed growing and making way for green energy production, to a new airport. One follower managed to piece together images from ESA\u2019s Sentinel-2 satellite, seeing the construction of the shape take place from late 2022 into 2023.<\/p>\n After just six hours and many discussions on what exactly this structure was, the answer came from space enthusiast Riccardo Rossi<\/a> on X, formerly known as Twitter: it is a new major construction of the Micheweni Free Economic Zone (FEZ). There will be residential buildings, schools, hotels, car parking and water supply facilities for a small city on the coast of Pemba Island. Riccardo provided the detailed plan for the area and deciphered the puzzle of Zanzibar.<\/p>\n Andreas was happy to learn that the mystery of Zanzibar had been solved and grateful for all the guesses and help from the community.<\/p>\n You can follow the last weeks of Andreas\u2019s Huginn mission on Andreas\u2019s social media channels.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n