A fringe of brilliant green vegetation encircles the crater of the volcano in the center of Isla Fernandina, one of the Galapagos Islands, in this Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) image.
Fernandina is the westernmost of the larger islands in the archipelago. In total there are 50 islands of various sizes scattered over an area of about 4,500 square kilometers in the Pacific Ocean. The islands are clustered around the equator about 800 kilometers off the coast of Ecuador.
In this image, streamers of hardened lava in various shades of purple spread downward from the summit across the island toward the ocean. The different colors may represent lava flows of different ages and compositions.
References & Resources
Image courtesy NASA/GSFC/MITI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team
