Dust off Northwestern Africa

Dust off Northwestern Africa

A plume of dust blew off the northwestern coast of Africa on November 21, 2006. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) flying onboard NASA’s Terra satellite took this picture the same day. In this image, a faint plume of dust blows primarily out of Western Sahara and over the Atlantic, heading toward the northwest. While the nearby clouds are opaque white, the dust is translucent beige.

NASA image created by Jesse Allen, Earth Observatory, using data provided courtesy of the MODIS Rapid Response team.