Don't look down. NASA's Landsat 8 satellite has captured impressive color imagery of Africa's Nyamuragira and Nyiragongo volcanoes from a nauseating elevation of 440 miles above Earth's surface.
The images, captured by the observatory's Operational Land Imager, feature two smoke plumes rising and being blown to the southwest by the winds in the mountains of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Nyamuragira is one of Africa's most active volcanoes, and the new images -- captured Feb. 9 -- show that a small but vigorously bubbling lake of lava has formed in the volcano's caldera. Nyamuragira's caldera features walls that rise roughly 330 feet high. Scientists first confirmed the lava lake's presence last year via satellite images and helicopter flyovers.
In 1938, a large fissure atop Nyamuragira allowed lava from its lake to drain, flowing all the way to Lake Kivu, several dozen miles south. More recently, the volcano has erupted, spewing lava in 2010 and 2011. But it wasn't until last year that its caldera began to refill with lava.
To the south is Nyamuragira's twin, Nyiragongo, which boasts the largest lava lake on the planet. Nyiragongo is one of the world's few volcanoes to sustain a lava lake for several decades. While the piping hot lake of lava mostly just smolders, the volcano has erupted twice in the last century, each time with deadly consequences.
In 1977, lava raced down the volcano's slopes at more than 60 mph. The lava enveloped parts of several nearby villages, killing at least 70 people. In 2002, another erupting and subsequent lava flow killed 147 people (most from carbon dioxide asphyxiation) and forced thousands to evacuate from the nearby city of Goma.
Researchers say the increased lava and seismic activity inside the calderas means another eruption or fissure is likely in the near future. With Nyamuragira's lava lake continuing to grow, officials in the DRC are already considering evacuation plans for Goma.