At about 4 a.m. on June 22, 2019, the remote Raikoke Volcano blew its top, sending a column of ash and gases rocketing ten miles high into the atmosphere above the northwest Pacific Ocean.
As luck would have it — and the word "luck" is particularly apt because this volcano rarely erupts — astronauts aboard the International Space Station were in position to observe the event. One of them captured the photo above. (For the full-sized image, please click here, and then click on the image again to zoom in.)
I offer this as one of my picks for the top images of Earth as seen from space during 2019. Keep reading for the others — an admitedly eclectic mix documenting breathtaking — and in one case terrifying — earthly spectacles.
Raikoke is one of a chain of volcanoes in Russia's Kuril Islands. Comprising a small oval-shaped island with a crater a little less than a half mile across, the volcano most recently exploded in 1924, and before that, in 1778. June's eruption sent ash into the stratosphere, where it was spread far and wide by the circulation of a storm.
