What's in the photo? A "street" of swirling clouds alongside a giant sediment plume
When was it taken? Feb. 19, 2026
The swirling clouds, known as a Kármán vortex street or von Kármán vortices, were carved out by winds that whipped around a 6,400-foot-tall (1,950 meters) shield volcano, known as Hallasan, on South Korea's oval-shaped Jeju Island. The lofty peak sits in the East China Sea around 60 miles (100 kilometers) south of the Korean Peninsula (top right of the photo) and between China's Jiangsu province (on the left) and Japan's Kyushu island (on the right).
The photo also reveals a thick curtain of brownish sediment stretching beneath the waves along China's eastern coastline, including off Shanghai (located around halfway along the landmass in the image). Most of this sediment was discharged by the Yangtze River, the third-longest waterway on Earth, and similar scenes are visible from space for most of the year.
South Korea's Jeju Island is home to the country's tallest peak, Hallasan — a shield volcano that stands up to 6,400 feet above the East China Sea. (Image credit: NASA/Landsat/Robert Simmon via Wikimedia)
The elongated, pale plume is likely the result of increased turbulence in the Yangtze — caused by high rainfall — coupled with stronger seasonal currents and vertical ocean mixing in the winter, according to the Earth Observatory.
Jeju Island was created by a submarine volcanic eruption around 2 million years ago and has been inhabited by the Indigenous Jeju people for at least 8,000 years. A 2025 study found that people on the island today have unique genetic mutations leftover from this group, which may help the local Jeju Haenyeo ("women of the sea") free dive for food in deep and cold waters without specialized equipment.
See more Earth from space
Explosive 'Mountain of God' looms
A 2020 astronaut photo shows the unique structure of Ol Doinyo Lengai, an active stratovolcano in Tanzania that was recently adorned with a bright white "ash cone."
A 2011 satellite photo shows off an "imbricate fan" of alternating rocks in Pakistan's Sulaiman Range. The striking structure formed along the boundary of two tectonic plates.
A 2024 astronaut photo shows the icy surface of Pangong Lake breaking apart in the lofty Tibetan Plateau. The point where the ice meets the water almost perfectly matches a disputed border.
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