A two-pronged plume of dust hovered over northeastern Afghanistan and neighboring countries in mid-June 2008. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite took this picture on June 14, 2008. This natural-color image shows dust hovering over the borders between Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan. Much lighter in color than the landscape below, the dust is thick enough to completely obscure the satellite’s view of the underlying land surface.
The origin of the dust plume is not obvious from this image. While the landscape in this region is mountainous—particularly in Tajikistan and Afghanistan—sand seas cover much of Turkmenistan. The plume might have originated there and blown eastward.
You can download a 250-meter-resolution KMZ file of the storm suitable for use with Google Earth.
NASA image created by Jesse Allen, using data provided courtesy of the MODIS Rapid Response team. Caption by Michon Scott.
