A catalog of NASA images and animations of our home planet

• Credit:

  NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center. Caption by Michon Scott.

Eruptive activity continued at Nabro Volcano in Eritrea on June 19, 2011. As the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite passed overhead, volcanic ash formed a dark brown plume fanning out from the summit toward the southwest.

According to Earthquake Report, the volcanic ash shown in this image extends more than 60 kilometers (40 miles) into Ethiopia. The red outline near the volcanic summit shows where MODIS has detected unusually high surface temperatures associated with volcanic activity. The white puff over the volcanic summit may be water vapor released by the volcano. Meanwhile, haze hangs over the entire region, extending across the Red Sea to Yemen.

1. References

2. Global Volcanism Program. Nabro. Smithsonian Institution. Accessed June 20, 2011.
3. Vervaeck, A., Daniell, J. (2011, June 20). Eritrea Nabro Volcano – NASA: The highest levels of sulfur dioxide gas ever detected from space. Earthquake Report. Accessed June 20, 2011.

Images & Animations

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• NASA Official: Steven E. Platnick
• Database Updated: May 6, 2013