Picture of the Day: Icelandic Volcano Eruption from Space
On May 21, Iceland's Grímsvötn volcano erupted, sending plumes of ash and smoke nearly 8 miles high into the atmosphere. The Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies, an arm of the University of Wisconsin's Space Science and Engineering Center, managed to capture several visible channel photographs of the volcano's initial eruption through the Meteosat-9 satellite. The oblique viewing angle from this satellite helped to emphasize the large vertical extent of the eruption cloud.
Image: CMISS Satellite Blog.