World News Headlines February 18, 2022 Under One Ceiling 0 Explosive NASA images show volcano’s eruption reached incredible heights 0 0000 0 0 more Explosive NASA images show volcano’s eruption reached incredible heights February 18, 2022 Under One Ceiling now playing Transferring money from UAE abroad: what are my cheapest options February 18, 2022 Under One Ceiling WIN With Nespresso This Mother’s Day February 18, 2022 Under One Ceiling NBA Playoffs 2022: A Casual Fan's Guide to the Postseason February 18, 2022 Under One Ceiling Best New Climbing Gear of 2022 February 18, 2022 Under One Ceiling A Local Weekend Travel Guide to Austin, Texas February 18, 2022 Under One Ceiling First Drive: 2022 Range Rover Ups the Luxury SUV Experience February 18, 2022 Under One Ceiling Most Stylish Rain Jackets, Parkas, and Trench Coats for Men February 18, 2022 Under One Ceiling EU eyes Russian oil import ban as Moscow strikes western Ukraine February 18, 2022 Under One Ceiling World-class Clark Int’l Airport opens new 110,000 square-meter passenger terminal February 18, 2022 Under One Ceiling PCG: Bodies of 5 children who drowned in Taal Lake found February 18, 2022 Under One Ceiling Explosive NASA images show volcano’s eruption reached incredible heights Boom. The profoundly powerful Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption on Jan. 15 created a jarring appearance on Earth’s surface and sent pressure waves around the globe. Now, NASA scientists say the volcano’s plume of ash and gas reached a whopping 36 miles up in the atmosphere. That’s likely the highest plume ever recorded in the satellite era. The blast in the South Pacific came from an underwater volcano (Hunga Tonga and Hunga Ha’apai are just remnants of the volcanic peak.) As Mashable previously reported, volcanologists suspect that seawater interacting with the volcano’s magma (molten rock) beneath the surface ultimately provided this eruption with the pressure for such a massive explosion. “That’s what gave this [eruption] outsized energy, we think,” Josef Dufek, a volcanologist at the University of Oregon, told Mashable in January. All this heat and superheated water “was like hyper-fuel for a mega-thunderstorm,” NASA atmospheric scientist Kristopher Bedka told the space agency’s Earth Observatory blog. “The intensity of this event far exceeds that of any storm cloud I have ever studied,” Bedka added. Tweet may have been deleted NOAA satellite views show the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha‘apai volcanic eruption traveling high up into the atmosphere. On the top row, the second image from right shows the plume reaching the mesosphere, before the plume collapsed and spread out. Credit: NOAA / National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) The blast reached through the atmosphere’s troposphere, which exists between the surface and some five to nine miles up in the atmosphere. This is where jetliners fly and our weather occurs. But then it blasted through the next level, the lofty stratosphere, too. That’s some 22 miles thick. Soon after the eruption, the plume reached the mesosphere. Meteors, popularly known as shooting stars, burn up in the mesosphere. SEE ALSO: How climate change moved Earth’s axis Why Iceland’s eruption is so gooey and thrilling What Earth was like last time CO2 levels were this high Why it’s impossible to forecast the weather too far into the future The great blast, topping off at 36 miles in elevation, was significantly higher than the historic 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines. That eruption reached 22 miles, and its sulfur dioxide gases (which soak up and scatter sunlight) had a cooling effect on the world. The Tonga eruption likely won’t cool the Earth. This eruption largely contained water vapor, not absorbent gases. But, as noted above, the eruption still had a global impact. The blast sent shock waves around Earth, multiple times. Related Related posts: Fall is still the internet’s favorite season Colin Powell: Former US secretary of state dies of Covid complications ‘Saved by coal’: Far from COP26, another reality in India 10 Best tech gadgets for traveling tags: RSS Feed World News 0000 0 0 previous UK bracing for possible 'sting jet' as rare threat-to-life warning issued in back-to-back storms next Pre-order the new Split Pad Pro for Nintendo Switch, which is inspired by 'Pokémon Legends: Arceus'
