Hawaii's Lava Flows from Space

NASA has released a stunning satellite image of the lava flows erupting from Hawaii's Kilaueu Volcano. The Infrared Glow of Kilaueu's Lava Flows was captured on May 23rd 2018.

NASA's satellite image was captured by Landsat 8. It is a false-color infrared and green light bands image, which helps to highlight the active lava flows. The purple color around the lava flows are clouds being lit from below by the lava itself.


Esri's Kīlauea: Fountains of Fire also includes some recent satellite imagery of the volcano's active lava flows. Esri's story map explores this recent satellite imagery and goes on to explain why Kilaueu is so active.

The map showcases some of the recent satellite imagery of the lava flows. This includes both natural color imagery and false color imagery. This false color imagery uses the near infrared band to show the lave flows with greater clarity.

Esri's story map goes on to show the Kilaueu Volcano's position in the circum-Pacific Belt, where 90% of the Earth's seismic activity occurs. It also takes a much closer look at Kilauenu itself. This examination includes an animated map showing where historical lava flows have occurred, in chronological order, since 1790.