Tongan Volcano Eruption Unleashed Highest Plume on Record

Tongan Volcano Eruption Unleashed Highest Plume on Record
The eruption of an underwater volcano off Tonga, which triggered a tsunami warning for several South Pacific island nations, in an image from the NOAA GOES-West satellite taken at 1:00 a.m. ET on Jan. 15, 2022. CIRA/NOAA/Handout via Reuters
Reuters
Updated:

WASHINGTON—The powerful Jan. 15 underwater eruption of Tonga’s Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano in the South Pacific produced a plume that soared higher into Earth’s atmosphere than any other on record—about 35 miles (57 km)—as it extended more than halfway to space, researchers said on Thursday.

The white-grayish plume unleashed by the eruption in the Polynesian archipelago became the first one documented to have penetrated a frigid layer of the atmosphere called the mesosphere, according to scientists who employed a novel technique using multiple satellite images to measure its height.