Underwater volcano erupts and NASA captures it from space

Kawachi, a volcano submarine located near the Solomon Islands, it erupted and NASA captured the moment in a series of photos taken from space. The US agency nicknamed it “Sharkcano”, since a large number of sharks live in this area.

In recent months, NASA satellites have detected lighter-colored plumes of water in the western Pacific Ocean. According to specialists, these changes reveal that the underwater volcano erupted on several occasions.

The images were captured by the Operational Land Imager-2 (OLI-2), a remote sensing instrument aboard the Landsat-9 satellite.

Researchers noticed changes in the color of the water over the volcano between April and May, and the volcano likely began erupting as early as last October, according to a statement issued by NASA’s Earth Observatory.

It is not the first eruption of this underwater volcano

Prior to this recent activity, large eruptions were observed at Kavachi in 2014 and 2007. The volcano erupts almost continuously, with residents of nearby inhabited islands often reporting visible steam and ash.

The island is named after a sea god of the Gatokae and Vangunu peoples, and is also sometimes known as Rejo te Kvachi, or “Kavachi’s Furnace.”

Since its first recorded eruption in 1939, Kavachi has created ephemeral islands on several occasions. But the islands, up to a kilometer long, have been eroded and washed away by wave action.

It is currently estimated that the top of the volcano is 20 meters below sea level; and its base is at a depth of 1.2 kilometers.