Absolutely stunning. I especially like the way the cloud has been cleared around the eruption.

Impressive.

Is that a euphemism for "we made this volcano in the same studio we used for the faked moon landings, and we had to cut out the crater impressions"?

but what about global warming - is there gonna be a carbon offset? wonder how many airliner exhausts it equates to - kinda pisses all over global warming really!

thats impressive..... most impressive

amazing to see the ash and steam interacting that way

I'm very surprised they haven't flown up a few D3Xs by now!

What an awesome picture ! A view you could never get any other way ... ISS, I salute you !

"NASA explains that the picture is of particular interest to vulcanologists because it show "several phenomena that occur during the earliest stages of an explosive volcanic eruption"

Like handily labelling the 'pyroclastic flow' and 'Ostrov Matua'

Seriously though, fabulous shot - I never would've guessed that the top of the plume would look like that - I'd assumes ash all over!

No, the Apollo landing studios were shut down, as O.J. Simpson showed in his excellent documentary "Capricorn 1".

Type your comment here — plain text only, no HTML

Totally selfish of this volcano, spewing out all that CO2.

Who's supposed to pay the tax?

Paris, because she too knows it's all bollocks.

And she knows her bollocks.

A million baby seals will die when their 'berg melts and they fall into theensuing hot-tub of death. Who will pay for this tragedy? How can I help avert such a calamity?$?$?$

We need several decent -sized volcanoes to go off in unpopulated parts of the world, ideally nearer to the poles than the equator, they chuck dust up into the upper atmosphere and cool the atmosphere. Krakatoa did that pretty well, but it was a bit lairy and a bit too close to where people lived.

Could give us some pretty sunsets on our summer hols this year too.

Great pics though, especially the cloud condensing on top of the plume.

Or even without the labels and in a larger format at

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/38000/38985/ISS020-E-09048_lrg.jpg

or

http://tinyurl.com/mc6dqb