May 2, 2024

Stunning Satellite Image: Lava Flows North on Mauna Loa

By Adam Voiland, NASA Earth Observatory
December 6, 2022

Natural-color Landsat 9 satellite image recorded on December 2, 2022, of the ongoing eruption at Mauna Loa. (Click image for larger, high-resolution view.).
The Landsat 9 satellite got this image of the volcanic eruption as lava flowed past the Mauna Loa Observatory towards Saddle Road.
On December 2, 2022, this natural-color satellite picture of a continuous eruption at Mauna Loa was acquired by the Operational Land Imager-2 (OLI-2) on Landsat 9. At the time, lava from the Hawaiian volcano was moving north towards the Daniel K. Inouye Highway (Saddle Road). The image is overlaid with infrared information from OLI-2 revealing the area of warm areas connected with lava.
Lava fountains along a crack on Mauna Loas Northeast Rift Zone at roughly 9:30 a.m. HST on November 28, 2022. The photo was taken looking towards the north. Credit: USGS picture by K. Lynn.
NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren Dauphin, utilizing Landsat information from the U.S. Geological Survey.