Categories: Earth ObservationSatellites

Clear Satellite View of Earth’s Newest Island

Satellite view from the Advanced Land Imager on the Earth Observer 1, showing a brand new volcanic island in the Red Sea. Credit: NASA

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Want to get away from it all? Here’s the newest deserted island on Earth. In late December, we reported on a volcanic eruption in the Red Sea that appeared to have created a brand new island. The eruption has now stopped and on January 15, 2012 the Advanced Land Imager on the Earth Observer-1 satellite captured a clear, cloud- and volcanic plume-free view of this newly formed land mass. The new island is part of the Zubair Islands, located about 60 kilometers (40 miles) off the coast of Yemen. The new island and its older family members poke above the sea surface, rising from a shield volcano. This region is part of the Red Sea Rift where the African and Arabian tectonic plates pull apart and new ocean crust regularly forms.

If you want to visit, just watch out for hot lava pits and almost certain future eruptions.

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Source: NASA Earth Observatory

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy has been with Universe Today since 2004, and has published over 6,000 articles on space exploration, astronomy, science and technology. She is the author of two books: "Eight Years to the Moon: the History of the Apollo Missions," (2019) which shares the stories of 60 engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make landing on the Moon possible; and "Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos" (2016) tells the stories of those who work on NASA's robotic missions to explore the Solar System and beyond. Follow Nancy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Nancy_A and and Instagram at and https://www.instagram.com/nancyatkinson_ut/