The Soufriere Hills Volcano on the Caribbean island of Montserrat continued producing a plume of ash and/or steam as the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) flying onboard NASA’s Aqua satellite took this picture on September 12, 2006. In this image, the volcano’s plume differs only slightly in appearance from the nearby clouds. While the clouds are bright white, the plume is slightly gray, and its outline is a little less distinct. The ocean water appears unusually light in this image due to sunglint resulting from the Sun’s rays bouncing off the water’s surface and directly back into the satellite sensor’s field of view.
References & Resources
NASA image created by Jesse Allen, Earth Observatory, using data provided courtesy of the MODIS Rapid Response team.
