"Dont let the fire rush to your head..."

June 26, 2009 12:46 PM

Framed by a circle of clouds, this is a stunning illustration of Nature's powerful force. A plume of smoke, ash and steam soars five miles into the sky from an erupting volcano. The extraordinary image was captured by the crew of the International Space Station 220 miles above a remote Russian island in the North Pacific.
posted by KevinSkomsvold (22 comments total)

So you can see Russia from the Palin house.

Because she lives in space.

As a space cadet.

With very nice binoculars.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:49 PM on June 26 [1 favorite]

Awesome picture.
posted by jquinby at 1:10 PM on June 26

photo of the year...
posted by the cuban at 1:11 PM on June 26

Nice photo. And the stuff at the bottom about dark molecular clouds is pretty cool too.
posted by lazaruslong at 1:13 PM on June 26

Okay wow. Don't know if you saw it, but this is on the excellent photoblog The Big Picture by the Boston Globe. 35 really big photos of the awesomeness.
posted by lazaruslong at 1:14 PM on June 26 [4 favorites]

lazaruslong, thanks for the tip. From that link, Egyptian farming looks really odd from above
posted by filthy light thief at 1:25 PM on June 26

Great pictures. I just changed by desktop background five times in like two minutes.
posted by elder18 at 1:29 PM on June 26

Did they take a sequence while flying over? If so, that'd make a great 3D image.
posted by StickyCarpet at 1:45 PM on June 26

Did they take a sequence while flying over?

Indeed they did. Here's an animated series of snaps (6mb qt).
posted by prinado at 1:57 PM on June 26 [7 favorites]

No newspaper website should ever allow comments:

I have a feeling this volcano expelled more CO2 than the entire human population could ever produce.
- Ed Norton, Overland Park, KS USA, 24/6/2009 17:06

No worries everyone my president is proposing legislation today that will tax this event, maybe in the future countries will think twice about letting one of their volcanoes go off.
- pepper, USA, 24/6/2009 17:04

Thank you Ed and Pepper for confirming our British friends' fears that we are still the dumbest goddamn people on the planet.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 2:07 PM on June 26 [5 favorites]

Volcanic CO2 emissions.

"Our studies show that globally, volcanoes on land and under the sea release a total of about 200 million tonnes of CO2 annually... the global fossil fuel CO2 emissions for 2003 tipped the scales at 26.8 billion tonnes. Thus, not only does volcanic CO2 not dwarf that of human activity, it actually comprises less than 1 percent of that value. "

Just for the record.
posted by Xoebe at 3:09 PM on June 26 [4 favorites]

Holy crap, filthy light thief, I missed that one the first time around. Too cool!
posted by lazaruslong at 3:10 PM on June 26

I have a feeling this volcano expelled more CO2 than the entire human population could ever produce.
- Ed Norton, Overland Park, KS USA, 24/6/2009 17:06

I am Jack's ignorant environmental views.
posted by lazaruslong at 3:11 PM on June 26 [3 favorites]

I love how it punched a hole in the clouds!


Also, those Egyptian farmers are definitely communicating with aliens. Gotta be.
posted by orme at 3:18 PM on June 26

In the words of the kid from Incredibles:

"That was a-maz-ing!"
posted by scrutiny at 3:53 PM on June 26

From that link, Egyptian farming looks really odd from above

I think I've seen circular fields in Colorado as well. Not as spread out though.
posted by Erberus at 4:07 PM on June 26

So fucking cool.
posted by shelleycat at 4:35 PM on June 26

More awesome pictures here, including some that are big enough for good non-distorted wallpaper. I really wanted that Egyptian farm one in higher res, but settled for an awesome anvil cloud formation over Africa (see the weekly top 10 list under "find photos").
posted by jquinby at 4:55 PM on June 26 [1 favorite]

did I mention "awesome"?
posted by jquinby at 4:57 PM on June 26

Yeah, I've seen similar circular irrigation patterns flying over the American midwest, and from the ground in eastern Washington state— but not set off so sharply from a surrounding desert like those Egyptian fields.
posted by hattifattener at 6:01 PM on June 26

Here's an animated series of snaps

OK, I don't get this. I've looked at it in fast motion, and in slow motion, and I can't discern the slightest trace of movement within the plume itself; it seems to be completely frozen, yet we get a series of photos of it from different angles. Just how long - in real time - does this sequence represent? Some tiny fraction of a second?
posted by woodblock100 at 2:46 AM on June 27

Puff, puff, give, planet!
posted by you just lost the game at 7:45 AM on June 27