NASA Images Show Calmer Side of Italy’s Fiery Etna

Newly released space images of Italy’s Mount Etna, which
began its latest eruption on October 27, depict the
approximately 3,350-meter (11,000-foot) mountain in a calmer
moment. The last major eruption of Europe’s highest active
volcano, located on the island of Sicily, was in 1992.

The two perspective views were created by overlaying images
acquired from the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal and Emission
Radiometer on NASA’s Terra spacecraft in July 2001 over
topography, or elevation data, from NASA’s Shuttle Radar
Topography Mission, flown in February 2000.

The images are available from NASA’s Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., on the JPL Planetary Photojournal
at:

• http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA03370
• http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA03371

In the first image, a southward-looking view, dark lava
flows from the 1600’s (center) to 1981 (long flow at lower
right) are visible in the foreground, with the summit of Mount
Etna above. The city of Catania, population 350,000, is barely
visible behind Etna on the bay at the upper left. Catania was
destroyed by a huge volcanic eruption in 1669. This week’s
eruption sent lava flows down the north and south sides of the
volcano. The north flow is near the center of this image, but
the Aster image was acquired before the latest eruption.

The second image is a southward-looking view of Mount Etna
and the Aeolian Islands. The islands of Lipari and Vulcano are
seen in the foreground, with Mount Etna and its dark lava flows
visible on the skyline. Vulcano also hosts an active volcano,
the cone of which is prominent.

The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission was flown aboard Space
Shuttle Endeavour February 11 through 22, 2000. It used
modified versions of the same instruments that comprised the
Space Shuttle Imaging Radar-C/X-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar
that flew twice on Endeavour in 1994. The mission collected 3-D
measurements of Earth’s land surface using radar interferometry,
which compares two radar images taken at slightly different
locations to obtain elevation or surface-change information. To
collect the data, engineers added a 60-meter (approximately 200-
foot) mast, installed additional C-band and X-band antennas, and
improved tracking and navigation devices. The mission is a
cooperative project between NASA, the National Imagery and
Mapping Agency of the U.S. Department of Defense and the German
and Italian space agencies. It is managed by JPL for NASA’s
Earth Science Enterprise, Washington, D.C. More information is
available at:

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/srtm .

Aster is one of five Earth-observing instruments launched
in December 1999 on NASA’s Terra satellite. With its 14 spectral
bands from the visible to the thermal infrared wavelength region
and its high spatial resolution of 15 to 90 meters (about 50 to
300 feet), Aster will image Earth to map and monitor the
planet’s changing surface. Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade
and Industry built the instrument. JPL is responsible for the
American portion of the joint U.S./Japan science team that
validates and calibrates the instrument and the data products.

More information about Aster is available at:

http://asterweb.jpl.nasa.gov/ .

NASA’s Earth Science Enterprise is a long-term research
effort to understand and protect our home planet. Through the
study of Earth, NASA will help to provide sound science to
policy and economic decision-makers so as to better life here,
while developing the technologies needed to explore the universe
and search for life beyond our home planet.

The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages
JPL for NASA.