In 1985, the small Indonesian island of Sangeang Api (for scale, the island is 13 km wide) off the northeast coast of Sumbawa began to erupt. Within a month, the 1250 inhabitants had evacuated to Sumbawa. The eruption lasted until 1988. The lava and pyroclastic flows—the wide channel running west from the summit—are still easily traced on this image taken last week by Space Shuttle astronauts (STS-112) . Today, the island’s summit crater (1949 m) produces intermittent steam clouds.
Compare this photograph to an earlier Space Shuttle photograph taken in November 1985.
Astronaut photograph STS112-E-5628 was provided by the Earth Sciences and Image Analysis Laboratory at Johnson Space Center. It was taken October 15, 2002 from the Space Shuttle using a digital camera. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA-JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth.
