Located near the east coast of Italy’s province of Sicily, Mount Etna is Europe’s most active volcano and is one of the world’s largest continental volcanoes. Among all the world’s volcanoes, Mount Etna has the longest recorded history of eruptions, dating back to 1500 B.C. Since then, the volcano has erupted about 200 times and has been very active in recent decades.
On October 28, 2005, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) flying onboard the Terra satellite captured this image as Mount Etna emitted a faint plume of volcanic ash that blew westward away from the summit.