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Dust Storm Blows Across Iraq
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Dust Storm Blows Across Iraq |
| Description |
A bright band of dust sweeps down the center of ancient Mesopotamia in this Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ]) image, collected on April 19, 2005, by NASA's Aqua [ http://aqua.nasa.gov/ ] satellite. The dust is blowing north out of the Syrian Desert in Iraq and Syria. Though the color matches the ground, the airborne dust is brighter and smoother in texture, making it stand out in the image. The dust blankets the land between the Euphrates River on the east and the Tigris River in the west—the region that nurtured some of the earliest human civilizations. Today, a green band of vegetation makes the Euphrates River easy to see in modern Syria. On the right side of the image, the Tigris is also lined in green as it flows through eastern Iraq. MODIS detected three fires to the east of the Tigris, and they are marked with red dots in this image. NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov ] at NASA GSFC. The image is available in additional resolutions. |
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Fires in Mexico and Central
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Fires in Mexico and Central America |
| Description |
Fires continued to burn across southern Mexico, the Yucatan Peninsula, and northern Central America on April 19, 2005. The smoke extends out over the water in both directions: north into the Gulf of Mexico (top), and south over the Pacific Ocean (bottom right). Actively burning fires detected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Aqua satellite have been marked in red. An especially intense cluster of fires is burning in northwestern Guatemala, right of image center. The country is suffering from a severe drought that makes normal agricultural burning practices dangerous. In addition, people who are fighting over land in the country set fire to forests as a form of protest or to degrade land in protected forest reserves so that the government will permit salvage logging. This combination of accidental and intentional fire is taking a huge toll on the country's remaining rainforest. NASA image created by Jesse Allen, Earth Observatory, using data obtained from the MODIS Rapid Response team. |
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