The Indus River Valley, Pakistan

This pair of true- and false-color images feature the Indus River Valley, a lush oasis of vegetation made possible by the Indus River, which is visible as a thin black thread heading toward the Arabian Sea in the false-color image. The Indus River has its roots in the Tibetan Himalayas, and is fed from melting snows from three major mountain ranges and five Indian rivers. The Indus River valley was the home of a great ancient civilization - the Indus Valley Civilization - that lasted for about a thousand years and at its height controlled more territory than ancient Egypt or Mesopotamia.

In the false-color image, black represents water, while vegetation appears bright green, and the arid mountains and plains appear shades of tan and orange. Turquoise-blue represents high-level ice clouds that are difficult to see in the true-color image. These images were acquired on February 5, 2003, by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Aqua satellite.

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Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC

Published February 12, 2003
Data acquired February 5 - 5, 2003

Source:

Aqua > MODIS

Collection:

MODIS Rapid Response