The snow-covered peaks of
several volcanoes on the central Kamchatka Peninsula stand
above a fairly uniform cloud deck that obscures the surrounding lowlands. In
addition to the rippled cloud patterns—caused by interactions of air currents
and the volcanoes—a steam and ash plume is visible extending north-northeast
from the relatively low summit (2,882 meters above sea level) of Bezymianny volcano. Volcanic activity in this part of Russia is relatively frequent,
and well monitored by Russia’s Kamchatka Volcanic Eruption Response Team
(KVERT). The KVERT web siteprovides updated
information about activity levels on the peninsula, including aviation alerts
and webcams.
Directly to the north and
northeast of Bezymianny, the much larger and taller stratovolcanoes Kamen (4,585 meters above sea level) and Klyuchevskaya (also
Kliuchevskoi) (4,835
meters) are visible. Klyuchevskaya is Kamchatka’s most active volcano; it last
erupted in 2011, whereas Kamen has not erupted during the recorded history of
the region. The most recent activity at the volcanic massif of Ushkovsky (3,943 meters) was an explosive eruption in 1890.
To the south of
Bezymianny, the peaks of Zimina (3,081 meters above sea level) and Udina (2,923 meters) volcanoes are just visible above the cloud deck;
no historical eruptions are known from either of them. While the large Tobalchik volcano to the southwest is largely formed from a basaltic shield
volcano, its highest peak (3,682 meters) is formed from an older stratovolcano.
Tobalchik last erupted in 1976.
While this image may look
like it was taken from a passenger airplane, in fact it was taken from the
considerably higher altitude of the International Space Station (ISS). At the
time the image was taken, the ISS was located approximately 417 kilometers
above the Sea of Okhotsk and more than 700 kilometers to the southwest of the
volcanoes. The combination of the low viewing angle, the shadows, the height,
and the distance from the volcanoes contributes to the appearance of a
topographic relief map.
Astronaut photograph ISS033-E-18010 was
acquired on November 3, 2012, with a Nikon D3S digital camera using an 800
millimeter lens, and is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations experiment
and Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, Johnson Space Center. The image
was taken by the Expedition 33 crew. It has
been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast, and lens artifacts have been
removed. The International Space Station Program supports the laboratory as part of the ISS National Lab to help
astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to
scientists and the public, and to make those images freely available on the
Internet. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at
the NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut
Photography of Earth. Caption
by William L. Stefanov, Jacobs/ESCG at NASA-JSC.
Instrument:
ISS -
Digital Camera
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