Black smoke from oil fire in Kuwait

  • Credit

    Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC

Black smoke from an oil fire can be seen in these true-color Terra and Aqua MODIS images from November 24, 2002. The smoke first appears as a large black smudge in Kuwait at the center of the Terra image, which was taken during its morning overpass at 7:10 UTC. Later in the morning, at 10:15 UTC, the smoke cloud had grown much larger and started thinning out as it rose higher in the air. The MODIS instruments also detected active fires, which are marked in red, in Iran (top), Iraq (upper left), and Saudi Arabia (bottom). All four countries in the image border The Persian Gulf (bottom right), which shows turquoise-blue swirls of sediment in the water.

Metadata

  • Sensor

    Terra/MODIS

  • Visualization Date

    2002-12-15