When the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this natural-color image on April 22, 2015, strong winds blew a thick plume of dust from Saudi Arabia out over the Persian Gulf. There is a rich supply of dust in the Arabian Peninsula’s Empty Quarter or Rub’ al Khali. Considered empty because it has so few human inhabitants, the Empty Quarter contains half as much sand as the entire Sahara Desert.
NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Adam Voiland.
