Images
May 4, 2020 - Great Rann of Kutch
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Nestled between Pakistan (north) and India, the Great Rann of Kutch is a long, narrow salt clay desert the stretches inland from the Arabian Sea coast for almost 200 miles (325 km). Extremely arid and encrusted with a bright white mineral crust in the dry season (November – February), the Great Rann of Kutch undergoes a dramatic transformation in the summer monsoons. As rains begin to fall, the crusted pools turn into marshy salt flats edged by a thriving grassland, creating a rich environment to support a wide variety of migrating and nesting birds and other wildlife. The region is also home to Asia’s last herds of wild asses.
On April 29, 2020, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired a stunning false-color image of the Great Rann of Kutch.
Unlike a true-color image which gives a view similar to human vision, this false-color image uses a combination of infrared and visible light (bands 7,2,1 on the MODIS instrument) to highlight water and vegetation. In this combination, shallow water appears electric blue, vegetation appears bright lime green, soil appears tan and deep water appears an inky blue. It’s clear that, despite the dry appearance of the Great Rann of Kutch in late April, there has been enough rain to spur vegetative growth in the region as well as to begin to moisten several marshy pools.
This is a very different view than available in true-color, which would show the area as little more than dry desert with mineral encrusted pools, and it helps scientists understand what happens below the crusty surface in this region.
Thanks to the NASA Worldview App, both the true-color and the false-color views of the same image can be seen Here. The only difference is that the images were created from data from different MODIS Bands. True-color uses bands 4,3,1 while this false-color images uses bands 7,2,1.
The NASA Worldview app provides a satellite's perspective of the planet as it looks today and as it has in the past through daily satellite images. Worldview is part of NASA’s Earth Observing System Data and Information System. EOSDIS makes the agency's large repository of data accessible and freely available to the public.
Image Facts
Satellite:
Aqua
Date Acquired: 4/29/2020
Resolutions:
1km (67.8 KB), 500m (173.9 KB), 250m (235.2 KB)
Bands Used: 7,2,1
Image Credit:
MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC
Nestled between Pakistan (north) and India, the Great Rann of Kutch is a long, narrow salt clay desert the stretches inland from the Arabian Sea coast for almost 200 miles (325 km). Extremely arid and encrusted with a bright white mineral crust in the dry season (November – February), the Great Rann of Kutch undergoes a dramatic transformation in the summer monsoons. As rains begin to fall, the crusted pools turn into marshy salt flats edged by a thriving grassland, creating a rich environment to support a wide variety of migrating and nesting birds and other wildlife. The region is also home to Asia’s last herds of wild asses.
On April 29, 2020, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired a stunning false-color image of the Great Rann of Kutch.
Unlike a true-color image which gives a view similar to human vision, this false-color image uses a combination of infrared and visible light (bands 7,2,1 on the MODIS instrument) to highlight water and vegetation. In this combination, shallow water appears electric blue, vegetation appears bright lime green, soil appears tan and deep water appears an inky blue. It’s clear that, despite the dry appearance of the Great Rann of Kutch in late April, there has been enough rain to spur vegetative growth in the region as well as to begin to moisten several marshy pools.
This is a very different view than available in true-color, which would show the area as little more than dry desert with mineral encrusted pools, and it helps scientists understand what happens below the crusty surface in this region. Thanks to the NASA Worldview App, both the true-color and the false-color views of the same image can be seen Here. The only difference is that the images were created from data from different MODIS Bands. True-color uses bands 4,3,1 while this false-color images uses bands 7,2,1.
The NASA Worldview app provides a satellite's perspective of the planet as it looks today and as it has in the past through daily satellite images. Worldview is part of NASA’s Earth Observing System Data and Information System. EOSDIS makes the agency's large repository of data accessible and freely available to the public.
Image Facts
Satellite:
Aqua
Date Acquired: 4/29/2020
Resolutions:
1km (67.8 KB), 500m (173.9 KB), 250m (235.2 KB)
Bands Used: 7,2,1
Image Credit:
MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC
