This is a four year old photograph but it's gotten new life on the Internet lately.
It's an
amazing shot of a volcano erupting on an island off of eastern Russia, as seen from the International Space Station.
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Amazing shot fro the International Space Station
of a volcano erupting between Russian and Japan
four years ago. |
Earth Observatory is always a tremendous source of great photography, usually from space. Do read the link above for a great full explanation of what's going on in the picture.
In this shot, the Space Station happened to be going over the volcano when it erupted, and they captured the big plume of ash going way up into the sky, capped with a white cloud that made the whole thing look a bit like a nuclear bomb.
You can see along the slopes of the volcano something called a pyroclastic flow, which is a fast moving, extremely hot rush of hot gases that kills and destroys everything in its way. Almost everybody that has been killed by a volcanic eruption in the earth's history has been killed by a pyroclastic flow.
Luckily, not many people live near this volcano on the island, northwest of Japan, so nobody got hurt in this eruption.
So, we get to enjoy the awesomeness of nature and geology in this photograph, and not feel guilty about enjoying it, since there were no casualties and not much property damage to speak of
