When the Shiveluch volcano erupted on Monday night, the
diligent “zoom lens” on NASA’s Terra spacecraft, the Advanced
Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER),
was watching. It captured a thermal image of the erupting
volcano on the Russian peninsula of Kamchatka. Known for its
volcanic activity, the area is closely monitored because it
lies along major aircraft routes between North America and the
Asia.

The ASTER image is available at
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/earth/volcano .

The image shows the hot active lava dome complex, a
debris avalanche or hot ash deposit and a 25-kilometer (15-
mile) ash plume trailing to the west.

More information on ASTER is available at
http://asterweb.jpl.nasa.gov .

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.