The Shiveluch Volcano on Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula released a
small plume of vapor as the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission
and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA’s Terra satellite
passed overhead on May 10, 2009. According to the Kamchatkan
Volcanic Eruption Response Team, Shiveluch exhibited above-
normal seismic activity from May 6 to May 12, 2009, and ash
plumes may have reached a height of 6.7 kilometers (22,000
feet). The steam plume blowing northward away from the volcano
nearly matches the snowy white surface of the surrounding land,
but ashfall from earlier eruptions has stained the volcano’s
slopes dark brown. Although the snowy landscape visible in this
medium-sized version of the image looks like natural color
(similar to a digital photo), the image is actually made from a
combination of visible and near-infrared light. The large
version of the image shows a wider area, including vegetation-
covered areas to the south of the volcano; in this kind of
false-color image, vegetation appears red