Thin wisps of dust blow from the Sahara Desert over the Mediterranean Sea in this true-color image from February 20, 2010. Brought aloft by wind blowing north out of the desert, some of the airborne dust conforms to turbulent waves in the atmosphere. The waves run roughly parallel to the shoreline and were probably created when dry desert air collided with the moist air over the Mediterranean Sea.
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this image on February 20, 2010. The highest resolution version of the image is provided above. The image is available in additional resolutions from the MODIS Rapid Response System.
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NASA images courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Holli Riebeek.
