Sicily's Mount Etna blows perfect steam rings in rare phenomenon

Molten lava erupts violently into the air from a crater on the summit of Mount Etna in Sicily, Italy. 

The volcano has been quiet over the summer, but dramatically sprang into life over the past few weeks. 

The eruptions also appeared to change the volcano's vent geometry, causing it to produce a series of perfect steam rings - a rare phenomenon. 

Credit: Director / Videographer: Dr. Tom Pfeiffer, Producer: Jack Fletcher, Editor: Josh Douglas.

A Perfect STORRM

NASA and its industry partners Lockheed Martin Space Systems and Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp., successfully demonstrated a new sensor technology that will make it easier and safer for spacecraft to rendezvous and dock to the International Space Station.

This new docking navigation system prototype consists of an eye-safe lidar Vision Navigation Sensor, or VNS, a high-definition docking camera, as well as the avionics and flight software. Both sensors will provide real-time three-dimensional images to the crew with a resolution 16 times higher than the current space shuttle sensors.

This next generation system also provides data from as far away as three miles - three times the range of the current shuttle navigation sensor.

"You are looking at the future of rendezvous and docking right here," said David L. Taylor, president and CEO of Ball Aerospace, as he welcomed dozens of NASA and industry engineers to the demonstration.

The hardware will be tested by astronauts aboard STS-134, the last planned shuttle mission, currently scheduled for February 2011, as part of the Sensor Test for Orion Relative Navigation Risk Mitigation (STORRM) Development Test Objective (DTO).