Browse All : Images of Khartoum and Egypt

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Floods in Sudan
Title Floods in Sudan
Description Though flooding occurs every year in the African country of Sudan, 2007 brought unusually extreme floods that affected at least 400,000 people as of August 29, reported the United Nations. [ http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/YSAR-76JMJK?OpenDocument&rc=1&emid=FL-2007-000093-SDN ] Apart from destroying buildings, crops, and land, the swollen rivers and pools of standing water increase the risk of water-borne disease such as cholera, acute watery diarrhea, and malaria, said the United Nations. This photo-like image, captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ]) on NASA's Terra [ http://terra.nasa.gov/ ] satellite on August 29, 2007, shows flooding around the capital city of Khartoum, the tan-gray area nestled between the converging Blue and White Nile Rivers. To the south, sunlight reflecting off the surface of the water has turned the Blue Nile River silvery white, making it stand out from the surrounding land. Brilliant flecks of silver in the landscape between the two rivers are created by light reflecting off standing water or some other bright surface. The sunlight also highlights the intricate network of canals that run like arteries through squares of green agriculture. In the west, the White Nile River paints a wide, white-brown ribbon down the landscape. The river is several times wider than it is during the dry season, as a comparison with a cloud-free image [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/?NAfrica_2_07/2007172/NAfrica_2_07.2007172.terra ] from June 2007 reveals. (The area shown here is in the lower-left corner of the image.) As long as human civilization has clung to the fertile banks of the Nile River, the yearly flood cycle has regulated life. Today, the river is tamed by dams in southern Egypt so that only its upper reaches and its tributaries, the White and Blue Nile Rivers, still rise and fall with the annual rainy season in the Ethiopian highlands. Most of the flood water on the Nile typically comes from the Blue Nile River, the tributary that flows out of Ethiopia, but in this image, it is the White Nile River that appears most flooded. The floods on the White Nile most often arise when high water on the Blue Nile blocks the flow of water from the White Nile into the Nile River. Unable to continue flowing freely downstream, the White Nile pools behind the convergence point, as shown here. Another sign of flooding in the image is the addition of green to the land. Even beyond the irrigated land between the two rivers, the arid orange landscape is brushed with green where seasonal rivers have nourished new plants. NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov ] at NASA GSFC.
Khartoum, Sudan
Title Khartoum, Sudan
Description Sudan's capital city, Khartoum, translates as "Elephant's Trunk." The name describes the shape of the Nile where the Blue and the White Nile Rivers unite to form the single Nile River that flows northward into Egypt. This image shows the rivers near the end of the dry season. The White Nile (western branch) runs through Sudan from Uganda. The White Nile originates in equatorial regions, where rainfall occurs throughout the year, as a result, it runs at a nearly constant rate throughout the year. The Blue Nile, nearly dry this time of year, flows out of the Ethiopian highlands, where rainfall is more seasonal. The Blue Nile swells in the late summer and early fall with rains from the summer monsoons. The flow at these times can be so great that the volume is too much for the river's channel, causing the Nile to flow backward at the junction. In recent years, floods in Khartoum have occurred in August with heavy monsoon rainfall. (See more images from the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer [ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=5148 ] and Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer [ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=5113 ] instruments) Khartoum is one of the largest Muslim cities in North Africa, but it has a fairly short history. Founded as a military outpost in 1821, a Sudanese flag has only flown over the city since 1956. Today, Khartoum is home to more than a million people, including many refugees, both from neighboring countries as well as from an ongoing civil war in southern Sudan. The city has a low profile, dominated by sprawling areas of small buildings that are supported by little infrastructure. Astronaut photograph ISS010-E-23451 [ http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/scripts/sseop/photo.pl?mission=ISS010&roll=E&frame=23451 ] was acquired April 7, 2005, with a Kodak 760C digital camera with a 400 mm lens, and is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations experiment and the Image Science & Analysis Group, Johnson Space Center. The International Space Station Program [ http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/home/index.html ] supports the laboratory to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public, and to make those images freely available on the Internet. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. [ http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/ ]
Floods in Sudan: Natural Haz …
nasa, nasanaturalhazards
Though flooding occurs every …
Khartoum_TMO_2007241
mediatype IMAGE
mediatype image
date 2007-08-28
creator NASA -- NASA Image Of The Day
identifier Khartoum_TMO_2007241
Khartoum, Sudan: Image of th …
nasa, nasaimageofthedaygalle …
Sudan's capital city, Kharto …
ISS010E23451
mediatype IMAGE
mediatype image
date 2005-04-07
creator NASA -- Astronaut photograph eol.jsc.nasa.gov/scripts/sseop/photo.pl?mission=ISS010&roll=E&frame=23451 ISS010-E-23451 was acquired April 7, 2005, with a Kodak 760C digital camera with a 400 mm lens, and is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations experiment and the Image Science & Analysis Group, Johnson Space Center. The spaceflight.nasa.gov/home/index.html International Space Station Program supports the laboratory to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public, and to make those images freely available on the Internet. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA/JSC eol.jsc.nasa.gov/ Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth.
identifier ISS010E23451
Earth - Northeast Africa and …
PIA00127
Sol (our sun)
Solid-State Imaging
Title Earth - Northeast Africa and the Arabian Peninsula
Original Caption Released with Image This image of northeast Africa and the Arabian Peninsula was taken from an altitude of about 500,000 kilometers (300,000 miles) by the Galileo spacecraft on December 9, 1992, as it left Earth en route to Jupiter. Visible are most of Egypt (left of center), including the Nile Valley, the Red Sea (slightly above center), Israel, Jordan, and the Arabian Peninsula. In the center, below the coastal cloud, is Khartoum, at the confluence of the Blue Nile and the White Nile. Somalia (lower right) is partly covered by clouds.
General Description International Space Station Imagery
Areas of Sudan and Egypt as …
Title Areas of Sudan and Egypt as seen from Gemini 11 spacecraft
Description Libyan Desert area of Sudan, foreground, and the United Arab Republic (Egypt), at lower left, as seen from the Gemini 11 spacecraft at an altitude of 300 nautical miles during its 27th revolution of the earth. In view is the Nile River from Biba in Egypt to Khartoum in the Sudan. The Red Sea is in background. At upper left is the Arabian Peninsula. At top right is Ethiopia. Note L-band antenna of the Agena Target Vehicle.
Date Taken 1966-09-14
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