English: Strong winds pushed dust off the coast of northwestern Australia in early August 2017. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this true-color image on August 1. At least three roughly parallel plumes of dust pour off the coast and over the blue waters of the Indian Ocean. In the mid-1970’s scientists identified two major transport paths for dust that originates in the arid, dusty lands of central Australia. In the first, westerly cold fronts move dust across southeastern Australia. In the second, southerly and south easterly trade winds transport dust in a northwest arc towards the Indian Ocean. Dust can arise from many sources of sand and fine particulate dust from Australia’s arid lands, but one prominent source of dust is the Lake Eyre Basin, a huge internal drainage basin in central Australia. The source of the dust on August 1 is not visible in this image.