Haze collected over the Sichuan Basin in southern China on November 13, 2006. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) flying onboard NASA’s Aqua satellite took this picture the same day. In this image, dingy gray haze, mixed with white clouds, obscures the view of the basin. The haze extends southward over Laos, Vietnam, and the Gulf of Tonkin. West of the basin, however, snow-capped brown mountains show through clear skies.
China is rapidly industrializing, and industrial and urban smog often clogs the nation’s skies. Some of the haze in this image may also result from agricultural fires. MODIS detects many of those fires as hotspots where surface temperatures are much greater than the surroundings. In this image, the hotspots are marked with tiny red dots.
NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. The Rapid Response Team provides daily images of northern and southern portions of this region.
