Satellite captures time-lapse video of a volcano erupting for the first time in almost 500 years
A volcano on Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula, dormant since 1550, began erupting following a massive 8.8-magnitude earthquake in 2025. NASA's NISAR satellite has been tracking the lava flow with high-resolution radar imagery.
Why it matters
The use of advanced satellite technology to monitor previously unobserved volcanic activity provides critical data for geophysicists studying seismic impacts.
A volcano that has been silent since about 1550 began erupting after a big quake. A radar satellite recorded its lava spreading, twice every 12 days.
Volcanoes that erupt every few years get watched closely, often with instruments set up right on their slopes. A volcano that has gone centuries without erupting usually gets far less attention.
When one of those started erupting last year, a radar satellite kept coming back to it, and its images show the lava spreading out month after month. The site of interest is Krasheninnikov, a pair of volcanoes on the Pacific coast of Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula.
The satellite is NISAR, a joint mission of NASA and the Indian Space Research Organisation ( ISRO ) that orbits 464 miles (747 kilometers) above the ground. NASA announced the results in late September.
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