Acquired June 29, 2009, this true-color image shows a small plume from a crater at Kilauea. A similar plume rises along the coastline where hot lava meets cold ocean water.
Acquired August 19, 2009, this true-color image shows a ghostly gray-blue plume blowing from the Halema'uma'u Overlook vent on the Kilauea Volcano. While the land surface around the vent is devoid of vegetation, plants apparently thrive to the east.
his image shows the results of previous eruptive activity at Kilauea’s main crater and the Mauna Ulu crater on the volcano’s flank. A close look at the bare rock around the volcanoes reveals rivulets of rock, slightly darker than their surroundings, flowing from both craters toward the coast. In between areas of bare lava, vegetation has managed to thrive.
Germany’s Ries Crater (or Nördlinger Ries) is not easily discerned in space-based images. The crater’s existence was probably just as subtle to the medieval Europeans who established a settlement inside it and unknowingly matched their 1-kilometer- (0.6-mile-) wide city to the likely diameter of the meteorite that formed the crater.