A recent satellite image has revealed a stunning view of a coaxial cloud, resembling a bull’s eye, formed by the continuous eruption of a volcano.
La Cumbre Vieja Volcano erupted for the first time on September 19 of this year after more than 50 years of dormancy. The recent eruption forced thousands of local residents to evacuate as massive lava flows scorched agricultural land, roads, and homes in the southwest of the Canary Islands.
The bull’s eye cloud above the erupting volcano in La Palma, Spain.
Now, satellite images captured on October 1 by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite show a strange bull’s eye cloud above La Palma. Alongside this, the volcanic plume—a mixture of ash, smoke, water vapor, and other volcanic gases—and a rare atmospheric disturbance led to the formation of concentric circles.
Typically, a volcano erupts straight up into the stratosphere—the second layer of the atmosphere, extending from about 6 to 19 kilometers above the Earth’s surface to 50 kilometers—creating a towering column of clouds and ash.
However, a rare phenomenon known as temperature inversion occurred. According to the Earth Observatory, trapped gas plumes eventually created concentric rings due to natural movements and flows in the intensity of the volcanic activity, generating a type of gas emission pulse.
The official name for this type of coaxial cloud formation is gravity waves. However, this formation has nothing to do with gravitational forces and is completely distinct from ripples in space.
Although experts initially believed the eruption would last only a few days, La Cumbre Vieja continued to spew lava and gases many days later.
