Haze hugged the Himalaya in late October 2008. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this image of the region on October 30, 2008. In this image, the haze obscures the satellite’s view of the ground surface along the southwestern face of the mountain range. An especially thick band of haze appears near the India-Pakistan border. A thick cluster of firesâ€”indicated by red dotsâ€”occurs in the same area, although the band of haze passes over them.
The haze in this image probably results from a combination of agricultural fires and urban pollution. The pale beige color of the haze near the India-Pakistan border suggests that some of the haze might also result from dust blown into the region from the west.