NASA Astronauts And Satellites Capture Breathtaking Images Of An Awakening Volcano From Space

On June 22, 2019, a volcano that had been dormant and inactive for nearly a century suddenly sprang to life. Raikoke volcano, more commonly known as Raikoke island, has only two recorded eruptions in history: in 1924 and in 1778. But around 4:00 AM local time, a vast plume of ash and volcanic gases erupted from its central crater. Although it's an isolated island that's part of a chain near the extremely active Kamchatka peninsula in eastern Asia, the new and unexpected volcanic activity was first discovered not by terrestrial monitoring, but by spaceborne satellites (and ISS astronauts) committed to observing Earth from space. While the arsenal of satellites that NASA has to monitor our planet are in constant danger of being defunded, this eruption highlights the essential need for remote Earth observing. More

(Source: Forbes - Jun 28)