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Pictures of Kuril Islands Volcano From ISS
KindMind writes "The Daily Mail has cool pictures of the Sarychev Peak (Kuril Islands) volcano eruption taken from the ISS back on June 12. From the article: 'A chance recording by astronauts on the International Space Station has captured the moment a volcano explosively erupted, sending massive shockwaves through the atmosphere. Sarychev Peak, one of the most active volcanoes in the world, had been sitting quietly in the Kuril Island chain near Japan for 20 years, when it suddenly sprang to life on June 12. Fortuitously, the International Space Station was flying overhead at the time, and managed to capture this spectacular image of the ash-cloud tearing through the atmosphere, sending clouds scattering in its wake in a perfect circle.'"
Well, from TFA "The extraordinary image was captured by the crew of the International Space Station 220 miles above a remote Russian island in the North Pacific." :)
Not sure if Japan moved, or if Russia is trying to take over territory.
Disclaimer: I did not look for a map to find the location.
Is that a big frozen fish?
The original NASA story is here with large desktop background sized images. If you don't visit the weekly top ten site, you really should. Some of those images are breathtaking. Check out the thunderstorm anvil over Africa.
My work here is dung.
Video, or I don't believe you exist ;)
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Of course NASA will deny everything.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
No! That is my previously secret volcanic lair exploding you insensitive clod.
Almost exactly what an atomic detonation would look like from space, even down to the clouds being pushed aside and the "pileus cloud" that you see above atomic blasts from years ago.
Yes! I saw that as well, wasn't mentioned in the summary. This is the first time i've heard of a dark molecular cloud? So it blocks out all light from the stars behind it and somehow there are no stars in-front of it even though it's 500 LY away?
"How they are formed is unknown, but clouds such as this are thought to be a birthing place for new stars."
I thought Nebulae were responsible for that?
http://soylentnews.org/~tibman
Might want to read the FULL story. It's a dust /gas cloud in space....
I also found that interesting, just not particularly anythin to worry about.
"Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
All I can say is wow, that's cool.
"Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
Are those the same Kuril Islands that are source of the territorial dispute between Russia and Japan. Maybe after that volcano there is a chance Russia and Japan will finally sign a peace agreement - who needs those islands anyways.
OutputLogic
...how I envy those people.
"False hope is why we'll never run out of natural resources!" - Lewis Black
Could also be a picture of what happens when I try to talk to a woman in a bar.
Equine Mammals Are Considerably Smaller
Well under a 10th of a percent of one, in all likelihood.
"Our studies show that globally, volcanoes on land and under the sea release a total of about 200 million tonnes of CO2 annually...the global fossil fuel CO2 emissions for 2003 tipped the scales at 26.8 billion tonnes." (link to source, and so you can see that I didn't do anything sneaky with that elision
From the USGS "About Us" page"
The emergence of a global economy affects the demand for all resources. In turn, use of these natural resources is occurring on a scale that may modify the terrestrial, marine, and atmospheric environments upon which human civilization depends. The use of and competition for natural resources on the global scale, and natural threats to those resources, has the potential to impact the Nation's ability to sustain its economy, national security, quality of life, and natural environment.
So why, in the Kyoto Accord, are China and India exempted from pollution controls? Are they excused because they are considered "developing economies" and can therefore pollute as much as they want while the western countries pay industrial sin taxes?
Yes! I saw that as well, wasn't mentioned in the summary. This is the first time i've heard of a dark molecular cloud? So it blocks out all light from the stars behind it and somehow there are no stars in-front of it even though it's 500 LY away?
500 LY is our local neighborhood, galactically speaking, not even one quarter of the way across the arm of the galaxy's spiral that we are in. The map at the bottom of this page gives an idea of the scale of 500 LY. For comparison, let's look at the Orion nebula (middle "star" in Orion's sword). It is about 1200 LY away, and there aren't very many stars directly between us and it, even though it is about halfway across the arm that we are in.
"How they are formed is unknown, but clouds such as this are thought to be a birthing place for new stars."
I thought Nebulae were responsible for that?
Nebula are typically what's left over after a star dies, and yes can provide the matter for new star formation. But that isn't the only (or even main) mechanism. Anytime you have a large concentration of matter in space, gravity has a tendency to pull it together and form stars.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
...Hard at work.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Purely political reasons, I suspect. I'm not really here to fight about climate change, just to answer a question about the relative magnitudes of two values.
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
So how many human civilizations' worth of CO2 and other emissions did that just kick out? ;-)
The comments on the original are to the same tune. What makes anyone think that volcanoes are a significant source of CO2? Where would the CO2 that volcanoes are supposed to emit come from?
Volcanoes do emit some C02, but then, they emit some of just about everything. Their climate effects are mostly reduced atmospheric heat content due to an increase in ash and aerosols in the upper atmosphere. This effect is particularly pronounced for tropical volcanoes because (surprise!) Earth gets most of its sunlight in the tropics, and while the ash/aerosol cloud does spread out over a few months timescale to all latitudes, its effect is greatest at the latitude of the volcano.
"Volcanoes emit far more CO2 than humans" is the equivalent of "Anthropogenic CO2 emissions increase the frequency and severity of hurricanes". The majority of people on both sides in the public debate on climate change have left the science far, far behind, and are happy to believe stuff that "just makes sense" to them.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
sending clouds scattering in its wake in a perfect circle
clouds being pushed aside
The circular hole in the stratus cloud deck is pretty cool, but I think it's not caused by the detonation pushing clouds away. Unlike a firecracker or grenade explosion, the amount of gas released is tiny compared to the amount of air heated by the blast. The clear-sky circle isn't caused by air moving outward *away* from the volcano, but rather down, *toward* it.
What goes up must come down. The volcano heats air near it, causing it to rise and forming the ash column at the center. But if that air is rising, air nearby the volcano must be *descending* to compensate. Rising air cools adiabatically, causing water vapor to condense, forming clouds; descending air warms adiabatically, causing water droplets to evaporate, making the clouds vanish.
The first two images in the story are exactly the same, just rotated on a diagonal line going from the lower left corner to the upper right corner. So much for "the eruption continues unabated"!
It's only half a light-year across. Given the distribution of stars near here, odds are it would have no more than one or two stars between here and there, and zero isn't terribly unlikely.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
As opposed the volcanoes in other places?
Because, on a per country basis, or a per energy-usage basis, let alone a per capita basis, China and India pollute far, far less than the US. Even if China and India tripled their pollution output, on a per-capita basis they would pollute only a small fraction of the amount of pollution per capita that the US would be spewing after conforming to the Kyoto requirements.
sending clouds scattering in its wake in a perfect circle
clouds being pushed aside
As I see it, the clouds aren't being "blasted away" by any kind of shock wave or gas flowing outward from the volcano. Unlike a firecracker or grenade, the amount gas released by a big eruption is tiny compared to the amount of air heated by it.
As air is heated by the volcano, it rises. But if air is flowing up away from the volcano, air a further away from the volcano must be sinking to compensate.
You may know how clouds form: as moist air rises, it cools adiabatically and water starts to condense, forming droplets. It works both ways: if air is forced to *sink*, it warms adiabatically, and cloud droplets evaporate.
The clear-sky circle isn't a shock blast, it's a simple case of "what goes up must also come down".
Ha ! Who's going to claim now that the government aren't really monitoring my every move with their high flying satellites, mole machines and robotic cuckoos.
'Just happened to be in the the right place' to film this eruption, pull the other one !
Sigh. Yes. Because we (the industrialized countries) have already been at it for ~200 years, have created the great majority of the human-generated CO2 that is in the atmosphere currently, and, logically, we should be the ones to move first on solutions. Upon successfully meeting the initial goals, the plan was for India and China (among other countries) to be held to the same standard, because we can then say "See? It can be done." If we sit back and do nothing, then why shouldn't they proceed to do exactly the same thing we already did for a couple of centuries? The point is: they have ZERO reason to be held to any standard at all, because neither were we for all of that time. They want to do what we did, how can we possibly say "No, you can't do that." However, if we can change, then they can too, and they have no excuse.
If you read the Kyoto Accord, you can find the rationale for the approach taken. It was never intended to be the final agreement, or that developing countries would be off the hook FOREVER. All I hear are people whining about how countries like India and China don't have to do anything. Duh. Neither did we. The level of misunderstanding about this point is amazing. It's like telling the latecomers to a party that they can't have the same amount of pizza that you've been stuffing in your gut for hours, and that you're still consuming faster than ever. The Kyoto Accord is a bargain along the lines of "Look, yes, so far I've been wolfing down pizza as fast as I can get it, but I'll show you I can cut back to 2 slices of pizza an hour, and then isn't it reasonable to expect you do to the same?"
Of course, none of it is likely to happen now, so we're probably going to have to be content with whatever impact will result as developing countries proceed with little or no restraints at all. So much for the pizza.
Our studies show that globally, volcanoes on land and under the sea release a total of about 200 million tonnes of CO2 annually
I see, because we have an eruption of this magnitude every year?
After all, in the normal years with only minor eruptions that normally occur we must have exactly the same levels of gas released as large eruptive events.
Right.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The part that amazes me is that I, as a human, simply can't comprehend the sheer volume of matter required to form a star. It has to have enough fuel to capable of fusion for billions of years to really be stable. I can calculate and write down the numbers and do the math... but I truly can't visualize in a non-abstract fashion how much matter that is.
Truly amazing.
So it blocks out all light from the stars behind it and somehow there are no stars in-front of it even though it's 500 LY away?
It doesn't block all the light from the stars behind it. If you look at the edges, you can see a lot of dim, reddish stars that are only somewhat blocked.
As someone else mentioned, it's only about 500 light years away and not very big. The density of stars in this part of the galaxy gives a good probability that there wouldn't be any foreground stars between us and the cloud.
BTW, this is one of the counter-arguments to Olbers' Paradox, which is based on the calculation that if the universe were big enough (or infinite), every line of sight should end at the surface of a star, and the night sky should be as bright as the sun. But astronomers say that most of the mass (at least in nearby galaxies) consists of atomic and molecular clouds which block light from the stars behind them, just as this one does. So it could be true that every straight line from your eye eventually intersects a star, but you can't see it because that line first intersects a cloud like this one.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
It's the only way to be sure.
My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.