After forming over the borders between Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, the dust storm that began on September 5, 2008, expanded both north and south. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite took this picture of the storm on September 7, 2008.
The dust storm may have formed from salt lake and sand sea sediments along the borders between the three nations. In this natural-color image, however, the source points for the storm are obscured. Thick dust plumes blow eastward in a slightly clockwise motion. Thinner plumes also blow southward, reaching past the coastlines of Iran and Pakistan.
NASA image courtesy MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center. Caption by Michon Scott.
