ISS crew peaks into belching volcano

June 28, 2009 by Arvadmin

Russia’s Sarychev Peak volcano erupted on 12 June for the first time in 20 years just as the International Space Station flew directly overhead.

The volcano covers most of remote uninhabited Matua Island in the North Pacific Ocean and is underneath some of the main East Asia and North America air routes. There was an initial alert but traffic was not disrupted.

While there were a number of satellite images of the eruptions the best appears to be a photograph taken by the astronauts on board the ISS.

NASA says the picture is of particular interest to vulcanologists because it show several phenomena that occur during the earliest stages of an explosive volcanic eruption.

These include the main plume, which "appears to be a combination of brown ash and white steam" and a clear circle in the "cloud deck" - either caused by "the shockwave from the eruption or from sinking air around the eruption plume".

Also on show is what's probably pyroclastic flow, which "appears to be hugging the ground, descending from the volcano summit".

The came used as a Nikon D2XS with a 400 mm lens. NASA advised that the released image has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast.