A thick cloud of dust hung over the Taklimakan Desert in western China when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired this image on April 23, 2014. The desert basin is a significant source of dust and probably contributed to the large plume MODIS imaged later in the day. Dust storms peak in frequency in the Taklimakan in the spring.
NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Holli Riebeek.
