Dust Plumes over India and Pakistan

Dust Plumes over India and Pakistan

Dust swirled over the India-Pakistan border on May 25, 2009. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite took this picture the same day.

Beige dust forms an incomplete oval in the center of this image. Another plume blows toward the north, and a third plume forms an arc in the east and south. Source points for the plumes are not obvious in this image, but the Thar Desert, or Great Indian Desert, stretches along the Pakistan-India border. The dust very likely arose in that sand sea. As a cluster of tiny white clouds casts shadows on the dust plume in the east, the dust must occur at a lower altitude.

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