Dust and Smoke over Iraq and the Middle East

April 16 12:00:00, 2003

On April 16, 2003, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Terra satellite captured this image of a dust storm washing over the Middle East, blanketing parts of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and southern Iraq with a thick cloud of sand and dust. The dust appears like a series of waves breaking over the region, with a lighter-colored outer wave reaching out over the Persian Gulf, and a more substantial wave arcing up from the bottom left of the image through image center.

mage courtesy Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC