Mount Etna, Europe’s most active volcano, continues to spill rivers of lava
following a July 17 eruption. The recent activity of the 3,315-meter (10,876-foot) high
volcano can be seen in two images taken Sunday, July 29 by the Advanced Spaceborne
Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer on NASA’s Terra spacecraft.
The images are available at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/earth/volcano .
One image shows the lava advancing toward the town of Nicolosi on the Italian
island of Sicily. While the last two days have been relatively calm, a river of lava is about
4 kilometers (2.5 miles) away from the town. Thick ash clouds caused airport closures
and forced residents in the nearby city of Catania to use umbrellas while walking outside.
The other image shows a large sulfur dioxide plume coming from the summit of the
volcano.
More information on Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection
Radiometer is available at:
The Terra spacecraft, the flagship of a fleet of satellites dedicated to
understanding our global environment, is part of NASA’s Earth Sciences Enterprise, a
long-term research program dedicated to understanding how human-induced and natural
changes affect our world. JPL is managed by the California Institute of Technology in
Pasadena.
