Lava and smoke shine brightly in a contemporary satellite picture of an erupting Hawaiian volcano.
Kilauea, based mostly on Hawaii’s Huge Island close by the volcano Mauna Loa, has been erupting once more since Jan. 5 and its contemporary exercise glows in a Landsat 8 satellite picture taken on Jan. 11.
Exercise extending from September 2021 to December 2022 already had created a lake of lava surrounding Kilauea, in response to NASA’s Earth Observatory. “Kilauea has erupted nearly constantly from 1983 till 2018, when a months-long eruption created slow-moving lava flows that destroyed round 700 properties,” NASA’s Earth Observatory wrote in a statement (opens in new tab) Tuesday (Jan. 17).
“For the reason that 2018 eruption, Kilauea has been erupting sporadically,” the observatory added. “These current eruptions have been contained throughout the Halema’uma’u crater as lakes of lava.”
Associated: Space volcanoes: Origins, variants and eruptions
It seems that Kilauea and Mauna Loa have volcanic exercise that influences the opposite caldera, regardless that the volcanoes do not share a connection, however that relationship is just not firmly established but.
“When Mauna Loa is often lively, Kilauea tends to be much less lively, and vice versa,” Jim Kauahikaua, a volcanologist with the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, advised the New York Times (opens in new tab) in November 2022.
Lava bursts in Halema’uma’u crater have been reaching as excessive as 50 meters (164 toes) excessive amid the brand new outburst, particularly within the hours after the eruption started on Jan. 5, NASA added.
Landsat 8’s picture with its Operational Land Imager instrument is a mixture of pure coloration and, to higher spotlight the warmth signature of the lava, infrared wavelengths. Many of the eruption in the course of the imaging interval Jan. 11 was within the jap a part of Halema’uma’u, NASA reported.
Elizabeth Howell is the co-author of “Why Am I Taller (opens in new tab)?” (ECW Press, 2022; with Canadian astronaut Dave Williams), a guide about space medication. Observe her on Twitter @howellspace (opens in new tab). Observe us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or Facebook (opens in new tab).
