Satellite Captures Wall of Dust Moving Across Sahara

Wall of dust in the Sahara Desert. NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC.

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Wow — this looks HUGE from orbit — can you imagine standing out in the Sahara Desert and seeing this gigantic wall of dust heading right towards you? The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite observed this wall of dust on April 22, 2010 which spans hundreds of kilometers. See the image below for a wider view of the area.

NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC.

The region affected by this dust storm includes not just the Sahara Desert but also the Sahel, a semi-arid grassland region bordering the massive desert on the south. The dust plume hovers primarily over Burkina Faso and Mali. Straddling the border between Burkina Faso and Niger, an especially thick layer of dust appears to push southeastward.

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Source: NASA Earth Observatory

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy has been with Universe Today since 2004, and has published over 6,000 articles on space exploration, astronomy, science and technology. She is the author of two books: "Eight Years to the Moon: the History of the Apollo Missions," (2019) which shares the stories of 60 engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make landing on the Moon possible; and "Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos" (2016) tells the stories of those who work on NASA's robotic missions to explore the Solar System and beyond. Follow Nancy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Nancy_A and and Instagram at and https://www.instagram.com/nancyatkinson_ut/