This Tuesday, May 24, NASA announced that an underwater volcano, located in the Solomon Islandscalled Kavachi and better known as ‘sharkcano’ began activity and would be close to erupting.
According to the spatial entity, from the satellite images they were able to observe that there is evidence of a column of discolored water emitted by the Kavachi. This was recorded regarding 26 kilometers from the island of Vangunu.
Apparently this volcano entered the eruptive phase since last October 2021 and according to the Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program, the activities of this volcano have intensified between the month of April and the month of May, with which the forecast of the future eruption becomes stronger.
Sharkcano volcanic activity is frequent and generates small underwater eruptions that sometimes cross the surface generating ash, fragments and sulfur particles.
It should be remembered that this volcano receives these names due to the species of sharks that live in these waters around the submerged crater.
Effects of the Tonga volcano eruption reached space: NASA
On January 15, the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano had one of its most intense eruptions. According to Nasa experts, the effects of the volcano reached space.
When the eruptions occurred, the BBC reported that the magnitude of these were greater than those of the atomic bomb that the United States dropped on Hiroshima during world war II. Now, NASA scientists have identified through ESA’s Swarm satellites that the Tonga eruption reached the ionosphere.
It is important to understand that The ionosphere is “that part of the atmosphere that extends beyond the limits of the Earth.that is, the layer at the edge of space”, explains The universal.
“The volcano created one of the largest disturbances in space that we have seen in the modern era,” said Brian Harding, a physicist at the University of California, Berkeley, in words collected by the Nasa website.. “It is allowing us to test the little-known connection between the lower atmosphere and space.”.
“These results are an exciting look at how events on Earth can affect weather in space, in addition to space weather affecting Earth.”, This was explained by the space weather leader of the NASA Heliophysics Division, Jim Spann.
In the Nasa article, the experts also explained that in the eruption the volcano “launched a giant column of gases, water vapor and dust into the sky”, in addition, the explosion created large pressure disturbances in the atmosphere, which generated strong winds.
“It’s very surprising to see that the electrojet is largely reversed by something that happened on the Earth’s surface,” said Joanne Wu, a physicist at the University of California, Berkeley, and a co-author of the new study. “This is something that we have only seen before with strong geomagnetic storms, which are a form of weather in space that is caused by particles and radiation from the sun,” added the scientist.
This research, which was published in the journal Geophysical Research Lettersalso highlights the effects that the ionosphere can suffer when certain events occur on earth, in this case, the eruptions of the Tonga volcano.
“A strong equatorial electrojet is associated with the redistribution of material in the ionosphere, which can disrupt GPS and radio signals being transmitted through the region.”, explained NASA in its article.
