Earth from Space: Smoke over Moscow

Several large smoke plumes originating from burning peat fields and forest fires are visible in this Envisat image covering the area east of Moscow.

The city itself is seen in the bottom left corner of the image. The smoke plumes are stretching over several hundred kilometres and, combined with the normal air pollution in the city, can cause pollution levels ten times the normal levels for the capital.

Envisat’s Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer acquired this image on 29 July 2010 at a resolution of 300 m.