How Artificial Intelligence Captured a Changing Erta Ale Volcano's Lava in Ethiopia

The recent eruption of Erta Ale volcano in northeastern Ethiopia highlights the speed and impact of space artificial intelligence (A.I.). One of our planet's few exposed lava lakes is changing, and artificial intelligence is helping NASA understand how. On January 21, a fissure opened at the top of Ethiopia's Erta Ale volcano --one of the few in the world with an active lava lake in its caldera. Volcanologists sent out requests for NASA's Earth Observing 1 (EO-1) spacecraft to image the eruption, which was large enough to begin reshaping the volcano's summit. As it turned out, that spacecraft was already busy collecting data of the lava lake.