Streamers of dust from the Afar Depression in northeastern Ethiopia are blowing out over Eritrea (to the north) and the islands of the Dahlak Archipelago in the Red Sea, which lies between northeastern Africa and the Middle East. The dark splotches in the depression are lava fields; the Afar region contains several active volcanoes. A few fires have been detected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Terra satellite and are marked with red dots in this image from November 24, 20003.
The high-resolution image provided above is 500 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response System provides this image at MODIS’ maximum spatial resolution of 250 meters.
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Image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC
