Dust Storm over the Red Sea

Dust Storm over the Red Sea

Dust blew across the Red Sea, from Sudan toward Saudi Arabia, in mid-July 2009. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this natural-color image of the dust storm on its second consecutive day, July 15, 2009.

Camel-colored dust forms an arc that spans the distance between Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. In places, the dust is thick enough to completely hide the land or water below, but much of the dust is thin enough to allow a glimpse of what lies underneath. The dust thins toward the south.

NASA image courtesy MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center. Caption by Michon Scott.