Volcanoes National Park

Red-hot streams of molten rock sliced across the hard, black landscape. The lava hissed violently as it dropped into the Pacific near Hawaii’s Volcanoes National Park. Nearby passengers aboard a small boat could feel its 2,000-degree heat warming their faces. In the following days, a small new delta formed, jutting into the sea southeast of the Pu’u O’o volcanic cone. Hawaii had grown again, gaining a few more feet in a process that began tens of millions of years ago and thousands of miles below Earth’s surface.

Keep Exploring

Discover More Topics From NASA

James Webb Space Telescope

The image is divided horizontally by an undulating line between a cloudscape forming a nebula along the bottom portion and a comparatively clear upper portion. Speckled across both portions is a starfield, showing innumerable stars of many sizes. The smallest of these are small, distant, and faint points of light. The largest of these appear larger, closer, brighter, and more fully resolved with 8-point diffraction spikes. The upper portion of the image is blueish, and has wispy translucent cloud-like streaks rising from the nebula below. The orangish cloudy formation in the bottom half varies in density and ranges from translucent to opaque. The stars vary in color, the majority of which have a blue or orange hue. The cloud-like structure of the nebula contains ridges, peaks, and valleys – an appearance very similar to a mountain range. Three long diffraction spikes from the top right edge of the image suggest the presence of a large star just out of view.

Perseverance Rover

Parker Solar Probe

Juno