Volcanic Eruption Giving Earth Spectacular Sunsets

Thursday, September 04, 2008
By Andrea Thompson

Reports of unusually fiery orange sunsets on Earth and ruby red rings around the planet Venus have popped up on the Internet in the last week.

Some skywatchers suspect that these views are being colored by the dust and gases injected into the atmosphere by the Aug. 7 eruption of Alaska's Kasatochi volcano.

The skywatchers are probably right.

Kasatochi, part of the Aleutian Island chain, sent an ash plume more than 35,000 feet (10,600 meters) into the atmosphere when it erupted last month.

"This is a big ash-producing eruption," said Peter Cervelli, a research geophysicist with the United States Geological Survey at the Alaska Volcano Observatory. the rest