Fiery Secrets Unearthed in Fernandina’s Latest Eruption

A volcano on Fernandina, an uninhabited island dense with wildlife, is lighting up the night sky with the glow of lava.

Fernandina, the youngest of the Galápagos islands, is also the most volcanically active. The island’s La Cumbre volcano lies directly atop the mantle plume, or hot spot, that produced all of the Galápagos islands. In recent decades, the volcano has erupted roughly every four years.

The most recent eruption began on March 2, 2024, when lava began to pour from a circular fissure on the volcano’s southeast flank. The day-night band of the VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) on the NOAA-NASA Suomi NPP satellite captured this image (above) of the eruption’s glow early on March 5, 2024. Fernandina, the third largest island in the Galápagos archipelago, lies roughly 1,100 kilometers (700 miles) off the west coast of Ecuador.