© Dwight Okumoto

Scorching molten lava flows into and boils the incoming surf on the Big Island, Hawai’i. More images by Dwight Okumoto can be seen in The Great Outdoors 2010 online gallery.

Photo: NASA Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, Johnson Space Center

This photograph of the erupting Sarychev Volcano was taken June 12 by an astronaut on the International Space Station. Sarychev, on the northwestern end of Matua Island, is one of the most active volcanoes in the Kuril Island chain, northeast of Japan. The photo was taken with a Nikon D2XS digital camera fitted with a 400 mm lens. More information about the volcanic phenomena seen in this image is at the NASA Earth Observatory.