NASA Earth Observatory

On May 23, 2006, the Cleveland Volcano in the Aleutian Islands emitted an ash plume. By the time the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) flying onboard NASA’s Aqua satellite took this picture, on May 24, the ash cloud had already moved away from the volcano. In this image, the ash cloud appears as a gray-beige puffball near the bottom of the image. No discernible trail of ash extends back to the snow-capped volcano that produced the ash plume the day before.

The Cleveland Volcano occupies the western end of Chuginadak Island, a dumbbell-shaped, uninhabited island in the Aleutian archipelago. The eruption on May 23, 2006, was reported to the Alaskan Volcano Observatory by Jeff Williams, a flight engineer on the International Space Station.

NASA image courtesy of Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center.

Instrument: 

Aqua - MODIS