NASA Earth Observatory: Sarychev Volcano Eruption View from Space - Video

On June 12, 2009, the International Space Station happened to be passing over the Sarychev Volcano just as it was beginning to erupt.

A newly released video based on several stunning snapshots taken by astronauts reveals the beauty and power of the erupting volcano.

Sarychev Peak, which rises to a height of 4,908 feet (about 1,500 meters), is the tallest peak on Matua Island in the northern part of the Kuril Islands, a Russian archipelago in the northwest Pacific Ocean.

The volcano, one of the most active volcanoes in the Kuril Island chain, erupted in 1989, 1986, 1976 and 1946.

The new volcano animation reveals the plume of ash and steam rising from Sarychev. The plume appears to be brown ash capped with a head of white steam, a result of air rising quickly in a strong updraft, before cooling and condensing.

"The plume was so immense that it cast a large shadow on the island," according to NASA Earth Observatory.

Hawaii Night Sky Revealed in Stunning New Video - Sean Goebel

A new viral time-lapse video depicts the Milky Way over Mauna Kea, Hawaii, in amazing detail, complete with telescopes and dancing laser beams.

Sean Goebel, a graduate student in astronomy at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, created the new Hawaii night sky video from photographs shot on three consecutive nights in April and four nights in the summer of 2013.

Time-Lapse Video Still of Observatories Atop Mauna Kea, Hawaii Credit: Sean Goebel

The film features the night sky progression over Mauna Kea, a 13,803-foot (4,207 meters) mountain on Hawaii's Big Island, and its many telescopes.

The Keck, Gemini and Subaru telescopes each have lasers, which are used to remove the blurring effects of Earth's atmosphere using adaptive optics.

Goebel set up his cameras on nights when the weather was clear, the moon was small and when he knew the telescopes would be running the lasers.

On some of the nights, astronomers were using the lasers to observe the black hole at the center of the Milky Way.

Filming a typical scene took about five hours, using two digital SLR cameras (a Canon 5D Mk. II and Rebel XT) taking 300 1-minute exposures.

Goebel used a home-built rotary table to create motion in the scenes. He later edited the images into a video.

Twin-engined "Cri-Cri" at Paris Air Show 2011

Pilot Hugues Duval sits in his twin-engined "Cri-Cri", one of the smallest aerobatic aircraft in the world, in front of a Boeing 747-8FA.

Duval holds the world speed record for an electrically powered aircraft after reaching a top speed of 262 km/h.

Read the spec on this mini aerobatic aircraft here

You can also read more about this amazing aircraft on the Cri-Cri blog

60 Stunning Landsat Satellite Photos of Earth

60 Stunning Landsat Satellite Photos of Earth

Looking at nature from different perspectives can create stunning compositions for your photographs.

This couldn’t be more true than when we look at our planet from outer space and appreciate the reality of its beauty from such an incredible and rarely seen perspective.

The images in this compilation are from the Landsat 7 satellite and were created to introduce the general public to the Landsat Program.

Various combinations of the eight Landsat 7 spectral bands were selected to create the vivid RGB composites that we have featured.

Here are 60 absolutely stunning images of the Earth as seen from outer space. Click on the images for large resolution versions which you can use as wallpapers.