* Astronomy

Volcanic Activity on Pagan Island released a plume of ash and/or steam in early December 2006.
The Terra satellite captured this image of the volcano on December 6, 2006. In this image, the plume appears slightly darker than the nearby cloud cover. While the clouds are white, the plume is pale beige. Winds blow the plume to the west, and it quickly dissipates over the Pacific.


Credit NASA



Latitude: 18.14009° N; Longitude: 145.78305° E

Pagan Island, the largest and one of the most active of the Mariana Islands volcanoes, consists of two stratovolcanoes connected by a narrow isthmus. Both North and South Pagan stratovolcanoes were constructed within calderas, 7 and 4 km in diameter, respectively. The 570-m-high Mount Pagan at the NE end of the island rises above the flat floor of the northern caldera, which probably formed during the early Holocene. South Pagan is a 548-m-high stratovolcano with an elongated summit containing four distinct craters. Almost all of the historical eruptions of Pagan, which date back to the 17th century, have originated from North Pagan volcano. The largest eruption of Pagan during historical time took place in 1981 and prompted the evacuation of the sparsely populated island.

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