Fires in Northwestern India

Fires in Northwestern India

The skies over northwest India were extremely hazy on November 1, 2009, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this image. Scores of fires (locations outlined in red), probably related to agriculture, were puffing small plumes of smoke that coalesced into a thick river of haze to the south. The haze may also contain urban air pollution and dust.

NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team. Caption by Rebecca Lindsey, NASA’s Earth Observatory.