November 22, 2022 - Clear Skies over Qatar
Qatar
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Sunny skies and fair weather allowed the Moderate Resolution Imaging
Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s Terra satellite to capture a
gorgeous true-color image of Qatar on November 21, 2022.
Located in the Middle East and sharing a land border only with Saudi
Arabia, Qatar measures slightly smaller in size than the U.S. state of
Connecticut. Although nearly surrounded by the Persian Gulf, the CIA
World Factbook describes the country’s landscape as “mostly flat and
barren desert”. Only about 1 percent of the land is arable, with
roughly 0.2 percent of land in permanent crops. The green dots
scattered across the backdrop of tan sand, as seen in this image,
primarily mark irrigated farmlands and some developed housing areas.
Despite the lack of natural greenery across most of the country, Qatar
sits over large reserves of oil and natural gas reserves and is
strategically located in the central Persian Gulf. It has become one of
the richest countries in the world, on a per capita basis. Most of the
people live in the capital city, Doha, which is located on the round
bay on the southeastern coastline. The name of the city is said to
derive from the Arabic term “dohat”, which means “roundness” and refers
to the coastal bays.
In 2010, Qatar was awarded the honor of hosting the 2022 FIFA World
Cup, the largest single-sport competition in the world. Thirty-two
men’s national football (soccer) teams compete for the championship
over the course of 64 matches, all held in and around the city of Doha.
It is expected that more than one million people will watch the matches
in person from November 20 to December 18. FIFA anticipates that the
competition will reach a global in-home television audience of over 3
billion people over that period, with more than a billion fans tuning
in for the final match.
Preparations for the World Cup have been underway since 2010, and the
changes can be seen from space. On November 19, 2022, NASA's Earth
Observatory published an Image of the Day that showed some of those
changes. To view "Stadium City Qatar", simply click here.
Image Facts
Satellite: Terra
Date Acquired: 11/21/2022
Resolutions: 1km (157 KB), 500m (403.6 KB), 250m (258 KB)
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC
https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/individual.php?db_date=2022-11-22
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