Japan’s Shinmoedake eruption:

Electric glory

A ‘tentacle’ of lightning	A dense plume of ash rises and spreads from Japan’s Shinmoedake peak

Lightning crackles over Japan on Friday as ash and lava erupt from Shinmoedake peak, one of the calderas of the Kirishima volcano complex. Shinmoedake began erupting January 26, coating nearby villages and farms with ash and prompting authorities to ask for voluntary evacuations within a two kilometre radius.

Kirishima is a grouping of about 20 volcanic peaks on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu. The site featured in the 1967 James Bond film You Only Live Twice, serving as the secret base of the main villain, Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Although the complex is often active, Wednesday’s eruption is the strongest recorded at Kirishima since 1959.

Volcanic lightning is still a mystery, though it may be that electrically charged silica – part of magma – interacts with the atmosphere when it flies out of a volcano, says Steve McNutt of the Alaska Volcano Observatory.

The Japan Meteorological Agency raised its volcano alert level Wednesday and warned people living near the peak to evacuate. But agency volcanologist Sei Iijima said that he does not think the eruption is a sign of bigger things to come.

“You can never say never with a volcano,” Iijima said. “But the lack of magma movement beneath the surface leads us to believe that this activity won’t lead to a large-scale eruption.”

The town hosts an evacuation centre for people who left villages closer to the peak that were littered with volcanic debris. So far, the thick ash has also forced cancellation of a handful of domestic flights and several railway trains in Miyazaki Prefecture.

Japan’s Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite, or GOSAT, captured an image of the Kirishima plume on Wednesday, before the increase in activity that prompted the call for evacuations.

Built by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, the GOSAT spacecraft measures concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane, two major greenhouse gases.