A young volcanic island in the western Pacific Ocean has been going through some growing pains.
A young volcanic island has been growing in the western Pacific Ocean since 2013. Since mid-June 2020, it has been going through a vigorous growth spurt.
The images on this page show some of the latest eruptive activity at Nishinoshima, a volcanic island about 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) south of Tokyo, Japan. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired the natural-color image above on July 6, 2020, when the volcanic plume stretched hundreds of kilometers to the north and rose several thousand meters into the sky.
The false-color image below, acquired by Landsat 8 on July 4, 2020, combines shortwave infrared and visible wavelengths (bands 7-6-4). It reveals the heat signature of erupting lava and the relative coolness of the dark ash plume (blowing north). The bright purple clouds close to the island could be steam from the volcano or from lava vaporizing seawater.
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Image via NASA Earth Observatory
