Thick dust plumes blew over Syria and Iraq as thinner plumes blew as far north as Russia in early May 2009. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this image on May 5, 2009.
Nearly opaque plumes blow from Syria eastward into Iraq, where the plumes change direction. Some of the dust blows southward toward Saudi Arabia, but a thin plume of dust can be seen blowing northward over Turkey. The high-resolution version of this image shows dust plumes blowing over the Caspian Sea and southern Russia.
NASA image by Jess Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center. Caption by Michon Scott.
