On September 13, 2010, thick dust plumes blew over the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. By the following day, the dust had spread and thinned. Translucent plumes hovered over parts of both countries. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite took this picture on September 14, 2010. The beige plume spans hundreds of kilometers, but it is thin enough to allow a view of the land surface underneath.
Sand seas line the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and impermanent lakes occur along the border between Iran and Afghanistan. The plume likely arose from the impermanent lakes along the Iran-Afghanistan border, and picked up more material over the sand seas in the south.
NASA image courtesy MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Michon Scott.
