Back in April of
2021, there was a volcano in St.
Vincent Island in the Caribbean.
The image that that we did capture, it's the backscatter along a track
that is probably a thousand kilometers or so long.
The volcanic ash that ICESat-2 saw is encircled.
You can see that it's a very faint kind of ghostly signal.
The volcanoes to say it was about 200
or so kilometers to the west of where that track was.
But in that image, you can see the ash has gotten up to
I think it was about 10 kilometers or so, maybe 12.
The importance of these type of measurements are really for aviation
because we're able to get the vertical distribution of the plume,
which other passive satellites cannot do.
And so, you know, we can tell the FAA that in this area, you know, at this
altitude, there are volcanic ash,
and it's very important for commercial aviation
to avoid these things because they can impact the aircraft engines.