The massive Burning Man playa in the middle of the Nevada desert can be seen from space - check out the pictures

Paige Leskin

Aug 31, 2019, 17:57 IST

The massive Burning Man playa in the middle of the Nevada desert can be seen from space - check out the pictures

REUTERS/Jim Urquhart

A pirate ship cruises the Playa during the Burning Man 2014 "Caravansary" arts and music festival in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada in 2014.

Burning Man is taking place this week in the Nevada desert for nearly 80,000 attendees to enjoy a nine-day party made up of interactive art, music, elaborate costumes, and community.
On the day the event started, August 25, a satellite captured photos of the massive temporary city set up in the desert, and the flourish of attendees that swarmed the event area.
Check out these of birds-eye photos of Burning Man, which is so vast that it can be seen from space.
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Nearly 80,000 people have swarmed to a temporary city set up in the middle of the Nevada desert for a 30-year-old annual tradition known as Burning Man.

Burning Man welcomed attendees to its site - dubbed Black Rock City - starting this past weekend for the nine-day festival. Thousands set up campers and tents as they prepared for a week of partying and enjoying art. The celebration culminates with the burning of an effigy, known as "the Man."

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The Black Rock City "playa" is enormous. So big, in fact, that it can be seen from space. A satellite, belonging to space technology company Maxar Technologies, captured images of the Burning Man site on the day it welcomed attendees, and the photos show just how much of a production the festival is each year.

Take a look at some of the images taken from space of Burning Man 2019:

Here's your complete birds-eye view of what the Burning Man site looks like from space. The entire campsite has a circumference of about 10 miles.

The site for Burning Man, called Black Rock City, is set up surrounding the festival's most important piece of art: The Man, an effigy that is set on fire at the end of the festival.

Black Rock City is set up to expect up to 80,000 attendees. The satellite images show the massive line of people checking into Burning Man on August 25 as the festival kicked off.

With 80,000 people swarming the site, thousands of cars lined up to enter Burning Man. People are expected to pack whatever they need, since you can't buy anything on-site (except ice and coffee).

Some of the massive art installations, made of wild and bright colors, can be spotted in the satellite images. The theme of this year's Burning Man is metamorphoses, and the artwork adheres to that theme.

Burning Man attracts everyone from influencers to Silicon Valley elite. Some of the ultra-wealthy set up luxury sites at Black Rock City and get there in private jets, which can land at Burning Man's designated Black Rock City Airport.

One of Burning Man's key principles is "Leaving No Trace," which means that attendees must take everything they bring with them. The desert must look as attendees found it — empty.

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