Dust over the Arabian Sea

(Click on image for larger view.)

Dust plumes stretched southward over the Arabian Sea in late February 2012. The thickest plume arises just west of the Iran-Pakistan border, though thinner plumes blow southward along the entire coast of Pakistan.

Sandy deserts cover much of southern Pakistan and Iran, and the sand seas of the region often give rise to dust storms. Sandy deserts also cover large parts of Oman, although little of the dust in this image arises from that country.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired this natural-color image on February 22, 2012.
NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Michon Scott.

Instrument:
Aqua - MODIS - NASA