Clear Satellite View of Earth's Newest Island

By Nancy Atkinson - January 17, 2012 at 4:54 PM UTC | Planetary Science

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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.

Source:

NASA Earth Observatory

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com