Snow in the Taklimakan Desert

Credit: Jeff Schmaltz; MODIS team; NASA, Posted on: Saturday, 23 February 2008, 10:00 CST Download full size image

This view of the Taklimakan Desert (located in northwest China) was captured on February 19, 2008 by the MODIS on the Terra satellite. White snow covers the mountains, surrounding the desert, but it also covers a portion of the desert itself!

The sandy Taklimakan Desert is spread over about 125,000 square miles of the Xinjiang region of China. The desert sits in a depression ringed by mountain ranges, the Tien Shan and Pamir Mountains in the west and north, and the Kunlun Mountains in the south.

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