Few people have seen as many volcanoes as the astronauts that inhabit the
International Space Station. Not only does their imaging of the Earth's surface capture volcanism action, but it can provide remote sensing information on volcanoes that geologists cannot visit with any regularity. In honor of the thousands of volcano images that have been taken from the ISS, I present a gallery of some of the best shots I found, including some volcanoes that most people don't even know exist!
Above:
Adwa and Ayelu, Ethiopia
To start our tour of volcanoes seen from the International Space Station, we can start with one of the most recent shots. Commander Hatfield captured this image of two Ethiopian volcanoes in the morning light --
Adwa on the left with the large summit caldera and Ayelu, an older stratovolcano, on the right. One of the advantages of space-borne imaging is that we can monitor volcanoes that in remote locations, like the East African Rift valley of Ethiopia. As the eruption of
Nabro in 2011 shows, sometimes these distant volcanoes can produce eruptions with
far-reaching significance.
Image: Commander Chris Hadfield, CSA / Taken February 8, 2013.
