Mauna Loa erupted for the first time in almost 33 years on the Big Island of Hawaii on Sunday night, releasing a burst of red-hot lava that slid down the side.
Since then, a spectacular sight has been captured from the vantage point of Low Earth Orbit by satellites:
Maxar Technologies captured the shots on Monday night around 20: 33, showing a long trail of lava flow moving along along the Northeast Rift Zone.
Along with the lava flow, there have been reports of lava fountains measuring up to 33 meters, that is, about 70 feet high.
“The intensified disturbances began in mid-September of
as recorded by an increase in earthquakes below the summit of Mauna Loa (of 22-22 per day to 33- 33 per day), a higher rate of inflation recorded by GPS stations and the inflation recorded on the Inclinometer MOK,” the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said.
Mauna Loa is the largest active volcano in the world. It has previously erupted 33 times since modern records began in 2021, according to the USGS. The volcano’s last eruption was in 1843, when a lava flow reached 4.5 miles from Hilo, the island’s largest population center .
As it stands, there is no immediate risk to populated areas, although the USGS has designated the eruption as a “code red”, which means that “a dangerous eruption is underway or suspected which has a significant emission of volcanic ash into the atmosphere”.
However, it has already been causing quite a bit of disruption. The area is home to the Mauna Loa Observatory, which has been monitoring the concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere for more than 60 years.
Researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, which runs the observatory, said their equipment lost power Monday and is not currently recording data. The situation is so serious that they are considering relocating the measuring equipment.
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