Dust Plume over the Persian Gulf

Dust Plume over the Persian Gulf

A plume of dust blew out of Syria over Iraq, the northern tip of the Persian Gulf, and Saudi Arabia on June 26, 2007. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this image of the dust storm. In this image, the dust appears in a slightly paler shade of beige than the desert itself, blurring the landscape below. After stretching out over the Persian Gulf toward Bahrain and Qatar, the dust swirls back to the west, into Saudi Arabia. Although some extra dust may have been kicked up along the way, the dust in the southwest part of this image probably did not arise from that rugged, hilly region.

NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center