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Space Station Science

Picture of the Day

May 23, 2003

Eruption
Photo credit: ISS Expedition 7 science officer Ed Lu, NASA

May 23, 2003: Tiny Anatahan Island is blanketed in ash. Its only
inhabitants--thousands of feral goats and wild pigs--have perished. A
churning plume of brown smoke reaches 4 miles into the air. 

International Space Station (ISS) science officer Ed Lu saw it first.

"Looks like a volcano of some sort on that small island," he said on
May 11th when the space station soared over the Pacific Ocean. The
eruption had begun less than 12 hours earlier, and Ed Lu--who really
wasn't looking for volcanoes--spotted it before any of NASA's Earth
observing satellites. (The ability to notice the unusual is a key
advantage of humans in space.) 

Anatahan Island is a 9-km long member of the Northern Mariana Island
chain. Although the island looks like a volcano--its central feature
is a caldera--no one had ever seen it erupt. Permanent residents were
evacuated in 1990 after a series of strong earthquakes shook the
island. Since then visitors to Anatahan have noted a pungent
rotten-egg smell and an increasing number of steamy vents in the
ground. An eruption seemed likely ... for 13 years.

There was no immediate warning when the blast finally happened on May
10, 2003. Since then ash and dust spread by winds have contributed to
lovely sunsets in the region and perhaps to the red color of the May
15th lunar eclipse. And the volcano remains active. Are more
surprises in store? No one knows. But Ed Lu will keep glancing out
the window just in case.... 

Astronaut photograph ISS007-E-5366 was provided by the Earth Sciences
and Image Analysis Laboratory at Johnson Space Center. Additional
images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the
NASA-JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth.

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