SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS Radio) -- Your best-ever vacation photo might be good, but not this good.
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station have captured a stunning image of an eruption of the Raikoke volcano in the Pacific Ocean. That's in the Kuril Islands, between Japan and Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula.
According to a post on NASA's Earth Observatory website, on June 22, "astronauts shot a photograph (above) of the volcanic plume rising in a narrow column and then spreading out in a part of the plume known as the umbrella region. That is the area where the density of the plume and the surrounding air equalize and the plume stops rising. The ring of clouds at the base of the column appears to be water vapor."
NASA provided details about the image itself:
Astronaut photograph ISS059-E-119250 was acquired on June 22, 2019, with a Nikon D5 digital camera and is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations Facility and the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, Johnson Space Center. The image was taken by a member of the Expedition 59 crew. The image has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast, and lens artifacts have been removed.
