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January 3, 2026 - Clouds over the Taklimakan
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A thin layer of cloud stretched over the western Taklimakan Desert in late December 2025 while fresh snow clung to nearby mountaintops and desert foothills. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired this true-color image of cloud and fresh snow on December 29.
The Taklimakan Desert sits in the Tarim Basin, located between the mountain ranges of the Tien Shan (or Tian Shan) in the north, and the Kunlun Shan in the south. Few places on Earth are farther away from an ocean than this desert, which is isolated from both the Asian monsoon and Arctic storms. The lack of moisture leaves the Taklimakan the driest desert in China—as well as the warmest and the largest. Mobile sand dunes cover about 85 percent of the Taklimakan, some of them reaching a height of 100 to 200 meters.
The Taklimakan is also a well-known source for dust storms, which move freely around the basin and sometimes spill eastward, moving on the wind to cover large areas of China. In recent years, scientists have begun to study the impact of dust on the formation of ice-crystal rich cirrus cloud which forms over the desert. Atmospheric ice nuclei (IN) are tiny airborne particles which are able to condense water vapor for freeze supercooled droplets to form ice crystals. The terrain and other features of the Taklimakan Desert appears to allow formation of such ice-crystal rich cirrus clouds, which is likely what is visible in this image.
Image Facts
Satellite:
Aqua
Date Acquired: 12/29/2025
Resolutions:
1km (171.8 KB), 500m (507.6 KB), 250m (673 KB)
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit:
MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC
A thin layer of cloud stretched over the western Taklimakan Desert in late December 2025 while fresh snow clung to nearby mountaintops and desert foothills. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired this true-color image of cloud and fresh snow on December 29.
The Taklimakan Desert sits in the Tarim Basin, located between the mountain ranges of the Tien Shan (or Tian Shan) in the north, and the Kunlun Shan in the south. Few places on Earth are farther away from an ocean than this desert, which is isolated from both the Asian monsoon and Arctic storms. The lack of moisture leaves the Taklimakan the driest desert in China—as well as the warmest and the largest. Mobile sand dunes cover about 85 percent of the Taklimakan, some of them reaching a height of 100 to 200 meters.
The Taklimakan is also a well-known source for dust storms, which move freely around the basin and sometimes spill eastward, moving on the wind to cover large areas of China. In recent years, scientists have begun to study the impact of dust on the formation of ice-crystal rich cirrus cloud which forms over the desert. Atmospheric ice nuclei (IN) are tiny airborne particles which are able to condense water vapor for freeze supercooled droplets to form ice crystals. The terrain and other features of the Taklimakan Desert appears to allow formation of such ice-crystal rich cirrus clouds, which is likely what is visible in this image.
Image Facts
Satellite:
Aqua
Date Acquired: 12/29/2025
Resolutions:
1km (171.8 KB), 500m (507.6 KB), 250m (673 KB)
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit:
MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC
