October 11, 2004
This true-color image shows a large cloud of Saharan Desert dust (tan pixels) blowing westward over Niger, Mali, and Mauritania in northwestern Africa. The dust can also be seen extending westward over the Atlantic ocean in this scene. The bright feature in the eastern Atlantic (image bottom center) is sunglint, caused when the Sun’s rays are reflected off the surface of the ocean directly back at the satellite.
This image was acquired on October 11, 2004, by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite. The high-resolution copy available here is 250 meters per pixel.
References & Resources
NASA image by Jesse Allen, Earth Observatory, using data courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response team at Goddard Space Flight Center
