Picture of the Day: Iceland's Grimsvotn Volcano From Space  By
Nicholas Jackson   Grimsvotn is Iceland's most active volcano,
but before it erupted on May 21, sending a plume of ash 12 miles
into the sky, it hadn't exploded so forcefully in more than 100
years. Since 1902, according to NASA, which captured this
photograph using the Moderate Resolution Imaging
Spectroradiometer (MODIS) attached to the Terra satellite. It
"shows the towering ash plume at 1:00 p.m. local time," NASA
reported. "Lingering snow is visible beneath the clouds to the
northeast (upper left). Brown ash covers a portion of the
Vatnajokull Glacier near the Atlantic coast (lower right)."
That ash covered most of Iceland, leaving some areas of the
country pitch black by the middle of the day on the 22nd, and
shut down Kaflavik Airport, which is Iceland's largest. "This
eruption is not expected to disrupt air travel as much as that
of Eyjafjallajokull in 2010 because the Grimsvotn ash particles
are larger and settling out of the atmosphere