TEHRAN – Scenes of the magnificent Lut Desert, a UNESCO World Heritage in the Iranian heartland, are on show at a specialized photography exhibition in Zahedan, the capital of Sistan-Baluchestan province.

The exhibit runs between September 28 to October 3 to mark the national tourism week, and it puts on show a selection of works by landscape and nature photographers, provincial tourism chief Khadijeh Barahouei announced on Tuesday.

“The exhibit is aimed to highlight national attractions of the Lut desert as well as its tourism potentials,” she noted. 

The Lut Desert, widely referred to as Dasht-e Lut (“Emptiness Plain”), is a large salt desert encircled by the provinces of Kerman and Sistan- Baluchestan, and South Khorasan. It is the world’s 27th-largest desert and was inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List on July 17, 2016. It is teemed with giant dunes, shifting sands, salt plains, and wind-hewn kaluts, offering visitors epic journeys of breathtaking beauty and wilderness. It is a destination for people who are in search of new adventures; outstanding scenery and unparalleled serenity.

The scorching desert is also being considered as one of the top areas in the world for finding meteorites, thanks to its unique parameters. In recent years, significant finds have been made, with the efforts of national and international teams of researchers. Seven years of satellite temperature data analyzed by NASA show that the Lut Desert is the hottest spot on Earth. Based on the research, it was hottest during 5 of the 7 years and had the highest temperature overall: 70.7°C in 2005.

AFM/MG