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Where is it?Mount Vesuvius , Italy [ 40.82177024 , 14.42760653 ]
What ’s in the photo?The peak of Vesuvius align with a gap in the clouds
The caldera at the summit of Mount Vesuvius was perfectly aligned with a hole in the clouds when the Landsat 8 satellite passed overhead in 2022.
Which satellite took the photo?Landsat 8
When was it taken?Jan . 2 , 2022
This sensational satellite photo shows one of the world ’s most famous and potentially dangerous volcanoes , Mount Vesuvius , playact a plot of peep - a - boo with an orbit ballistic capsule through a strangely mold hole in the clouds .
It is not exactly clear why such a circular hole opened up in the thick cloud cover surrounding Vesuvius.
Mt. Vesuvius is a 4,203 - foot - tall ( 1,281 meters)stratovolcanolocated next to the metropolis of Naples along the westerly Italian coastline . It is most celebrated for a massive eruption in A.D. 79 , which destroyed the papist cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum , and killed around 2,000 hoi polloi , around half of which wereperfectly preserve by the pyroclastic flows , along with their homes and possessions .
Today , around 800,000 people live on the volcano ’s slopes and up to 3 million people lodge in within the potential danger zone of future eruptions , making Vesuvius " one of the world ’s most serious volcanoes , " grant toNASA ’s Earth Observatory .
In the range of a function , Vesuvius ' caldera — a with child bowling ball - comparable economic crisis due to the flop of the mountain ’s summit during a old eruption — appear to peer up through a disruption in the cloudslike a gargantuan eye .
A large curved ridgeline can also be seen near the top of the cloud gap . This is the remainder of Mount Somma — an ancient vent that once stand in the same berth as Vesuvius , before the newer vent ’s cone cell grew from its center .
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It is unclear precisely what caused the gap in the otherwise thick clouds covering Vesuvius and Naples .
However , the circular Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe of the maw is similar tocircular cakehole punched in the cloud by airplanes , known as " fallstreak holes . " It is , therefore , plausible that a plane taking off or landing from Naples International Airport could have created the hole .
“Ticking time bomb”
Vesuvius is part of the Campanian volcanic arc — a string of volcano in Italy , including thecurrently dynamic Mount Etna , that pose on a boundary between the African and Eurasian architectonic plates .
The volcano ’s last major eruption conclude in 1944 . Since then , the region surrounding Vesuvius has experienced several quake swarms , most recently in 1999 , grant to theGlobal Volcanism Programat the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History .
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scientist also believe that the next big eruption may not be too far around the corner .
In a 2011 theme put out inNature , research worker describe Vesuvius as " Europe ’s tick fourth dimension dud " and warned that scientist and the polite authority ca n’t agree on how to prepare for a succeeding eruption .
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