May 29, 2011
A dust plume spread over the parts of Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia on May 29, 2011. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this natural-color image the same day.
Spanning hundreds of kilometers, the pale beige plume appears thickest east of the Saudi Arabia-Jordan border. No source points for this dust plume are apparent. The fine sediments along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in Iraq, however, and the sand seas in Saudi Arabia—including the Empty Quarter, or Rub’ al Khali—provide ample material for dust storms.
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NASA image courtesy MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Michon Scott.
