The White Desert, Egypt

Unusual islands of chalk shine as the sun rises in the Egyptian White Desert on September 2, 2007. The desert is known for its unusual wind-eroded rock formations in the Farafra Depression, 400 kilometers southwest of Cairo. (Cris Bouroncle/AFP/Getty Images)

Stark and mysterious, deserts cover approximately one-third of the Earth's land surface, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. And while most of these vast, dry areas of sand and rocks are beautiful, a number of them feature extraordinary qualities that make them stand out from the rest. From a desert lit up with fiery colored hills to one that hums like a car engine, we take a look at the most spectacular deserts of the world.

If there's one place that exhibits the erosive power of the wind, it would be Egypt's White Desert, where chalk-rock formations are sandblasted into alien-like shapes by the desert winds. Located about 28 miles north of Farafra in western Egypt, the White Desert is known for its pale, cream color and for the gigantic, jagged pediments that dot its landscape. The pediments, more than 300 feet tall, were once part of a continuous, rocky plateau, and the blasting sand will eventually eliminate them altogether, according to BBC.

Aside from the formations (which have been given names such as "mushroom" and "ice cream cone") that crop up across the lunar-like landscape, small, uninhabited oases and mini depressions can also be found scattered across the desert, declared a protected national park in 2002, according to Egypt Heritage. The desert is also home to wildlife, visitors usually catch a glimpse of foxes and the Sooty Falcon.

NEXT: Rainbow hills in the Arizona desert

Painted Desert, Ariz.

Covering a massive 93,500 acres of land, the Painted Desert in Arizona is known for its colorful, eroded hills, awash in hues of red, blue, orange, and purple. The colors are created by minerals dissolved in sandstone and clay soils that were deposited during different geologic periods, according to Frommers. Here, strong winds blow across dune fields, an area where less than 10 inches of rain falls each year.

Much of the desert's expanse lies within the Navajo Nationand forms the geographic tissue connecting Petrified National Forest Park with Grand Canyon National Park, according to Scott Thybony's "The Painted Desert: Land of Wind and Stone." A Visitor Center is located within Petrified Forest National Park, where tourists can check out exhibits. The area also offers a number of hikes and non-hikers can take a 10-mile paved road to see spectacular wind-sculpted rock formations. Arizona Guide suggests taking in the views at sunset, when the rocks morph into a canvas of vivid colors.

NEXT: The driest place in the world?

Atacama Desert, Chile - The Driest Place on Earth

Spanning some 41,000 square miles across four South American countries, the Atacama Desert is considered the driest place in the world. In Chile, the desert receives just 0.004 inches of rain per year, though snowmelt from the nearby Andes Mountains fills lakes and rivers that support wildlife.

Because of its high altitude (the Atacama Desert is located over 8,000 feet above sea level),nearly non-existent cloud cover, and lack of light pollution and radio interference, the Atacama Desert is one of the best places in the world to conduct astronomical observations. The visibility gives stargazers almost-perfect views of the legends of the Southern Hemisphere sky, Tarantula Nebula and the Fornax Cluster of galaxies, according to Travel and Leisure.

Visitors to the desert will also find a unique natural phenomenon—alien-like ice and snow formations known as "penitentes." These thin spikes and blades of hardened snow or ice, often found in high-altitude regions, form in clusters with their blades pointing toward the Sun. They attain heights ranging from a few inches, resembling low grass, up to 16 feet, giving an impression of an ice forest in the middle of the desert, said the European Southern Observatory.

NEXT:Crystal-blue pools dot this desert

Lençóis Maranhenses, Brazil - A 'Desert' With Lagoons

Located inMaranhão state in northeastern Brazil, the​570-square-mileLençóis Maranhenses National Park is composed of large, white sweeping dunes which, from above, look like white linens draped across the landscape ("Lençóis Maranhenses" means bedsheets of Maranhenses).

Techically, theLençóis isn't really a desert, Antonio Cordeiro Feitosa, a geographer at the Federal University of Maranhão, told National Geographic. Lying just outside the Amazon Basin, the region is subject to a regular rain season — about 47 inches or so of rain — during the beginning of the year.By definition, a desert averages fewer than ten inches a year. The rains, however, cause a strange (and beautiful) phenomenon: fresh water collects in the valleys between sand dunes, creating perfectly blue and green lagoons across the desert.Some of these temporary lagoons are more than 300 feet long and up to ten feet deep, according to National Geographic. They reach their fullest between July and September.

NEXT: Europe's only desert landscape

Tabernas Desert, Spain - Europe's Only Desert Landscape

Nestled in the mountains of the Sierra Nevada, Gador, Filabres and Alhamilla, the Tabernas Desert is one of the most dramatic landscapes in Spain. Europe's only true semi-desert (there are no true absolute deserts in Europe), the Tabernas is also famous as the setting for many spaghetti westerns. Because the dry, rugged, and desolate landscape of the Tabernas resembles that of the American Wild West, hundreds of movies were shot there throughout the 1960sand 1970s by film studios working with a smaller budget, according to the New York Times.

Outsideof movies, the Tabernas Desert has an alluring lunar quality, with eroded ravines, dry river beds and dusty slopes.It has a semi-arid Mediterranean climate, rainfall that does not reach 10 inches per year and temperatures that range between from -5 degrees to 48 degrees Celsius, says Andalucia.com.Mediterranean-type sand-covered gullies have also formed, known as "bad lands", with steppes covered in grasses.

NEXT: A desert with sands that hum

Xiangshawan Desert, Inner Mongolia- The 'Sounding Sands' Desert

Bactrian camels walk on the dunes of Xiangshawan Desert, also called Sounding Sand Desert on July 19, 2013, in Ordos of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China. (Feng Li/Getty Images)

In the wintertime, temperatures in the Xiangshawan Desert in the Inner Mongolian region of China are frigid with frequent blizzards, and the summertime brings hot, dry weather that can cause huge sandstorms. But these forbidding conditions don't stop tourists from coming to this remote stretch of dunes about 350 miles west of Beijing. Naturalists and curious travelers flock here to experience the desert's "sounding sands," a phenomenon that occurs when wind pushes sand down dunes and creates a sound like the humming of a car engine, according toLiveScience.

Tourism is booming in the area and more hotels and tourist attractions are cropping up in the desert. One architectural wonder, the Desert Lotus Hotel is currently being constructed in the new resort, ppopular with Chinese tourists. It's designed to resemble the flower unfolding its petals across the desert.To deal with the constantly shifting sands, the Lotus Hotel is supported by a steel skeleton anchored in the sand without any water or concrete, according toPLaT Architecture, the firm that designed the hotel.The resort hosts Mongolian-themed performances, camel rides, desert surfing, and more.

NEXT: Take a trip to this dark, mysterious desert

The Black Desert, Egypt

Located a little to the north of the White Desert, and close to Bahariya, Egypt,visitors will find a desert coated with a layer of black powder and rocks. Black volcanic hills erupted and spewed dark volcanic rocks that give the region its name ago, according to the Egypt Tourism Authority.

For the best views of the vast , otherworldly landscape of the Black Desert, visitors can climb the English Mountain, the highest point in the desert. The Black Desert is uninhabited but can be viewed from the road from Bahariya to Farafra. Several companies also offer organized trips and tours to the area.

NEXT: Animal life thrive in the world's oldest desert

Namib Desert, Namibia - The Living Desert

A coastal desert in southern Africa, the vast NamibDesert is the world's oldest desert and has existed for at least 55 million years, according to the World Wildlife Fund. Covering nearly 100,000 square miles, rainfall is sparse and unpredictable here, and there is no surface water and just a few river drybeds. But surprisingly, the NamibDesert is a living place (and thus called by many "the living desert"), home to an impressive array of plants and animals, according to PBS.

The area's coastal fog is an important factor contributing to the diversity of animal life in the extremely arid environment of theNamib Desert, according to WWF.org.There are almost 70 reptile species in the ecoregion, of which more than 25 are considered endemic to the ecoregion.The Namibis also home to a large number of small rodents that live among the rocky habitats in the western deserts and in the sand dunes, and to beetles, which have evolved methods of condensing fog as a source of water, according to Barry Lovegrove's "The Living Deserts of Southern Africa."

NEXT:A desert that most resembles Mars

McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica

Ecologically, a desert receives less than 10 inches of precipitation per year. Despite the fact that 98 percent of Antarctica is covered with ice, the continent is the world’s largest and driest desert; it is classified as a polar, or cold, desert rather than a hot desert like the Sahara, according to Earth Gauge. A row of snow-free valleys locatedwithin Victoria Land west of McMurdo Sound, the McMurdoDry Valley region is one of the world's most extreme deserts.For a few weeks each summer temperatures are warm enough to melt glacial ice, creating streams that feed freshwater lakes that lie at the bottom of the valleys, according to NASA. Beneath a cap of ice these lakes remains unfrozen year-round, supporting colonies of bacteria and phytoplankton.

Scientists consider the Dry Valleys perhaps the closest of any terrestrial environment to the planet Mars, and thus an important source of insights into possible extraterrestrial life. NASA is actually studying how the region compares to the surface of Mars three million years ago, Earth Gauge reported.

NEXT:Snow covers one of the hottest places on Earth

TaklamakanDesert, China - The Desert That Got Covered in Snow

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Aqua satellite observed a snow-covered Taklamakan Desert in western China on Jan. 2, 2013. Snow has covered much of the desert since a storm blew through the area on Dec. 26. (NASA/Aqua)

Snow-covered deserts are rare, but in January 2008, China's biggest desert (andone of the hottest placeson Earth), theTaklamakan,experienced record snowfall, and was covered for the first time in its entirety with a thin layer of snow reaching 1.6 inches, with a temperature of -26.1 degrees Celsius (-15degrees Fahrenheit), according toXinhuaNews Agency. Snow covered theTaklamakan, which stretches to 130,116 square miles, during a monumental stretch of winter weather that struck China.

In January 2013,the Moderate Resolution ImagingSpectroradiometer(MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured an image oftheTaklamakancovered in snowonce again.The desert's 2013 snow cover was courtesy of anunusual winter stormthat impacted several regions of the country, according toCNTV.

Because it lies in the rain shadow of the Himalayas, theTaklamakanis actually paradigmatic cold desert climate.There is also very little water in the desert and it is hazardous to cross.

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Dark Hedges, Northern Ireland

A man walks along the famous Dark Hedges avenue of trees in Antrim, Northern Ireland. This famous tunnel-liked avenue of intertwined beech trees was planted in the 18th-century. (Charles McQuillan/Getty Images)