Dust plumes blew out of the Gobi Desert on April 26, 2012. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this natural-color image the same day. Arising from source points along the border between southern Mongolia and China, the dust plumes fanned out toward the southeast.

The Gobi Desert straddles the China-Mongolia border, and holds landscapes ranging from sand and bare rock to grassy steppe. The Gobi is one of the world’s most abundant sources of dust. Dust storms tend to be the most frequent in the springtime, especially March and April.

Dust blew off the Libya coast for the second consecutive day on April 17, 2012, as the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite passed overhead and took this picture.

Unlike the previous day, when the dust was thin enough to allow the satellite sensor a glimpse of the land below, the dust on April 17 obscured the coastline east of Banghazi (Benghazi). In this image, the coast is outlined in black.

A little larger than Alaska, Libya has no surface water, and instead taps underground reservoirs for irrigation. Sand seas stretch over the country’s arid interior, and dust storms rank among Libya’s most common natural hazards.