Sakura-jima volcano spewed a dense plume of ash over the Japanese island of Kyushu on May 21, 2015. Currently Japan’s most active volcano, Sakura-jima explodes several hundred times each year. These eruptions are usually small, but the larger eruptions can generate ash plumes that soar thousands of meters above the 1,040-meter (3,410-foot) summit. On May 21, 2015, a plume reached a height of 5,200 meters (17,000 feet), according to the Tokyo Volcanic Ash Advisory Center. This natural-color satellite image was collected that day by the Operational Land Imager on Landsat 8.
NASA Earth Observatory image by Jesse Allen, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Caption by Adam Voiland.
