PIA02640: Airborne Particulates over Southern Africa
 Target Name:  Earth
 Is a satellite of:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  Terra
 Spacecraft:  Terra
 Instrument:  MISR
 Product Size:  1149 x 1046 pixels (w x h)
 Produced By:  JPL
 Other  
Information: 
MISR Site
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA02640.tif (3.089 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA02640.jpg (182.1 kB)

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

This map shows the abundance of airborne particulates, or aerosols, over Southern Africa during the period August 14 - September 29, 2000. Low particle concentrations are shown in shades of blue, and high concentrations in shades of red. The results were generated from MISR imagery acquired over this time period, and processed using MISR's automated software system. The approach for deriving aerosol amount makes use of the variation of scene brightness and contrast as a function of observation angle. Black areas over the land area correspond to places where a result was not obtained, for example, due to the presence of clouds.

Extensive burning of grass and shrubland for land management and agriculture comprises a principal source of these aerosols. Vegetation availability increases northward, hence the greater abundance of haze and smoke in Angola and southern Zaire. The lower aerosol abundance around Lesotho and southeastern South Africa is consistent with the higher terrain elevations near the Drakensberg Mountains.

MISR was built and is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, for NASA's Office of Earth Science, Washington, DC. The Terra satellite is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology.

Image Credit:
NASA/GSFC/JPL, MISR Team

Image Addition Date:
2001-01-10