A catalog of NASA images and animations of our home planet

• Credit:

  Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC

Saharan Desert dust (tan pixels) was spreading northwestward over the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Morocco on September 13, 2003. In this scene, the Canary Islands are visible in the lower left corner while the western tip of the Iberian Peninsula can be seen in the upper right. A thick plume of gray smoke is streaming westward from a large forest fire that had been burning in Portugal since the previous week.

This true-color image was acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), aboard NASA's Aqua satellite.

Images & Animations

• Webmaster: Paul Przyborski
• NASA Official: Steven E. Platnick
• Database Updated: May 7, 2013