The caldera at the top of Vesuvius lined up perfectly with a hole in the clouds when the Landsat 8 satellite flew over it in 2022. (Image credit: NASA/Landsat/Joshua Stevens)
This stunning satellite image shows one of the planet's most famous and potentially dangerous volcanoes, Mount Vesuvius, hidden from orbit by an unusual hole in the clouds.
Vesuvius is a 4,203-foot (1,281-meter) stratovolcano located near Naples on the west coast of Italy. It is most famous for its devastating eruption in 79 AD, which wiped out the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, killing an estimated 2,000 people, about half of whom were left perfectly preserved by pyroclastic flows, along with their homes and belongings.
Currently, an estimated 800,000 people live on the volcano's slopes, with up to 3 million living in the potential danger zone for future eruptions, making Vesuvius “one of the most threatening volcanoes on the planet,” according to NASA's Earth Observatory.
In the photo, Vesuvius's caldera – a large bowl formed when its summit collapsed during a previous eruption – resembles a giant eye peering through a gap in the clouds.
You can also see a large curved ridge near the top of the cloud gap. This is the remnant of Mount Somma, an ancient volcano that once stood in the same place as Vesuvius before a new volcano cone emerged from its center.
It is not entirely clear why such a round hole appeared in the dense cloud cover around Vesuvius.
It is unclear what exactly caused the gap in the clouds enveloping Vesuvius and Naples.
However, the circular shape of the hole is reminiscent of the circular holes made in clouds by airplanes, known as “drop lane holes.” So it is possible that an airplane taking off or landing at Naples International Airport could have created the hole.
“Time bomb”
Vesuvius is part of the Campanian Volcanic Arc, a chain of volcanoes in Italy, including the active Mount Etna, that straddles the boundary of the African and Eurasian tectonic plates.
The volcano's last significant eruption occurred in 1944. Since then, several earthquakes have occurred in the area around Vesuvius, the most recent of which was recorded in 1999, according to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History's Global Volcanism Program.
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