What's in the photo? The summit of Alaid volcano peeking above a thick layer of low-lying clouds
When was it taken? Aug. 2, 2019
The lofty peak is located on Atlasov Island, the northernmost of the Kuril Islands — a chain of roughly 50 largely uninhabited volcanic landmasses stretching along a fault line that runs between Russia and Japan in the Sea of Okhotsk. Altasov lies 40 miles (65 kilometers) off Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula, which is also renowned for its volcanic activity.
Alaid has erupted at least nine times in the past 50 years, including a major outburst in April 1981 that ejected a 1,250-mile-long (2,000 km) plume of thick smoke and ash into the atmosphere, according to the Smithsonian Institution's Global Volcanism Program.
Alaid last erupted in November 2022 and unleashed a scorching lava flow down its snow-covered slopes. This photo also shows what Atlasov Island looks like when it is not obscured by clouds. (Image credit: Pierre Markuse using Copernicus Sentinel data/ via Wikimedia)
In the astronaut's photo, roughly half of Atlasov Island rises above a deep, low-lying bank of swirling clouds. The summit of Alaid, crowned by a roughly mile-wide (1.6 km) caldera, is also obscured by clouds. (The volcano was not erupting when the photo was taken.)
The area surrounding a cluster of parasitic cones on the volcano's northwest flank (top right in the photo) is devoid of vegetation — a result of another major eruption in 1972, which scoured the surrounding landscape with hot ash. A 2009 study revealed fresh signs of recovery in the affected area, but noted that it could take hundreds of years for vegetation to return to pre-eruption levels.
In 1981, a major eruption caused Alaid to unleash a massive plume of smoke and ash that reached up to 1,250 miles long. (Image credit: Anatoli Khrenov (Institute of Volcanology, Petropavlovsk))
Astronauts and satellites have snapped several other stunning shots of intriguing landmasses nearby, including a quartet of end-to-end volcanoes on Simushir Island and a set of volcanic "nesting dolls" on Onekotan Island.
See more Earth from space
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 between China and India.
Explosive 'Mountain of God' looms
Mini lake meets ancient ice mass
A 2010 satellite photo shows the point where a small lake bisects the snowy rim of an ancient glacier on Canada's Baffin Island. The rippling, snow-rimmed structure is the last remaining fragment of a colossal ice sheet that once covered large parts of North America.
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