Thick haze blew off the coastlines of North and South Carolina on June 11, 2006. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) flying onboard NASA’s Aqua satellite took this picture the same day. In this image, the haze appears as a blue-green blur blowing eastward off the coast and over the Atlantic. This haze could result from a mixture of smoke and pollution, and might have originated west of the Carolinas. According to the Infusing satellite Data into Environmental Applications (IDEA) project, air quality across the southeastern United States was moderate (as opposed to good) on June 10, 2006.
In the eastern portion of the image, a different phenomenon causes the ocean to look lighter. This is sunglint, and it results from the light of the Sun bouncing off the ocean surface and back into the satellite sensor.
References & Resources
NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. The MODIS Rapid Response Team provides daily images of this region.
