Mayon volcano, southeast Luzon, Philippines

Mayon volcano is the most active volcano in the Philippines, located just north of the coastal town of Legaspi in southern Luzon about 325 km southeast of Manila. Mayon is a near-perfect cone; its steep, forested slopes look rather like a bull's eye when viewed from above. For scale, Mayon's circular footprint is about 16 km in diameter. This photograph was taken from the Space Shuttle on April 8, 1997. At the time the photo was taken, Mayon sported a steam plume from the summit. The lighter (non-forested) regions that radiate from the summit to the southern slopes are flows from eruptions that have occurred over the past twenty-five years. The current eruption, which started June 24, 2001, is sending flows down the southeast slope in the general direction of Legaspi.

Image STS083-747-88 was provided by the by the Earth Sciences and Image Analysis Laboratory, Johnson Space Center. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA-JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth.