Strong winds originating out of China’s Mu Us Desert sent thick plumes of dust billowing eastward over and through passes in the Luliang Mountains on December 6, 2004. The true-color image above was acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA’s Terra satellite.
You will notice there is a line of discontinuity running diagonally from top to bottom just right of center in this image. This discontinuity is due to fact that parts of two adjacent swaths, acquired about 100 minutes apart, were stitched together from consecutive overpasses of the Terra satellite in order to make the one image you see here.
The MODIS sensor aboard the Aqua satellite captured an image of this same event several hours later. The high resolution image available above is 500 meters per pixel. Copies of this scene are also available at additional resolutions.
NASA image courtesy MODIS Land Rapid Response Team at Goddard Space Flight Center
