After being dormant for the past 95 years, Raikoke, a small island volcano in the Pacific Northwest, awoke with such terror on the morning of June 22 that the eruption could be seen from space.
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station captured the explosion in a striking photograph showing a narrow column of ashes and gases leaking out into a “shadow area,” where the density of the plumber and the surrounding air made an equalizer, stopping to climb. In the image, the top of the cloud loses its shape as it is drawn into a storm to the east of the North Pacific.
The white puffs at the base of the trunk appear to be caused by water. According to Michigan Tech volcano Simon Carn, the clouds may have been formed when the explosion erupted from the surrounding air, or when hot magma made contact with seawater.
The volcano erupted nine times, and there were six of them in the first 25 minutes. The ash cloud also contained hundreds of lightning bolts, common for volcanic eruptions and known as “dirty thunderstorms,” Matthew Cappucci reports. The Washington Post. Thunder is also common in volcanic eruptions – find out what it’s like here.
Raikoke, acquired by Russia from Japan after World War II, is less than two square miles in area and is close to the center of the Kuril chain. Fortunately, the island is uninhabited, so no one had to recover from the explosion. But the cloud reached 42,700 feet in height of the stratosphere, where it could pose a threat to passing planes due to potential visibility issues, given the presence of rock and volcanic glass. The Volcanic Ash Advisory Centers in Tokyo and Anchorage have been closely monitoring their impact and alerting pilots as needed.
Volcanoes that are powerful enough to reach the stratosphere can affect the environment. Large emissions of carbon dioxide can contribute to global warming, according to Smithsonian.com, but sulfur dioxide can cause global cooling. NASA reports that after the explosion, a thick lump of sulfur dioxide separated it from the rest of the cloud and made its way toward the North Pacific.
[h/t Smithsonian.com]