Earth from space: Lava bleeds down iguana-infested volcano as it spits out toxic gas

This striking image captures the initial lava flow from the ongoing eruption at La Cumbre volcano. The active fissure is located on Fernandina Island — the third largest and most volcanically active island in the Galápagos Islands, around 700 miles (1,125 kilometers) off the coast of mainland Ecuador.

On March 2, La Cumbre erupted for the first time since 2020, NASA's Earth Observatory reported, when lava began slowly seeping out of a fissure near the summit of the volcano's 4,850-foot-tall (1,480 meters) southeast flank and dribbling down the mountain's tree-covered slopes. 

Since then, lava has continually poured out of the volcano, and in early April, the river of molten rock reached the island's coastline around 6 miles (10 km) from La Cumbre, the Galápagos Conservancy reported. As the lava met the ocean, large plumes of steam rose from the waves as the water cooled the superheated rock.

The eruption is still ongoing as of April 25, with no end in sight, according to the Smithsonian Institute's Global Volcanism Program.

Related: 12 amazing images of Earth from space

La Cumbre currently erupts around once every four years and is located directly above the magma hotspot, known as a mantle plume, that birthed this uninhabited Pacific island and the rest of the Galápagos. 

The volcano has a large crater, or caldera, at its summit that harbors a permanent crater lake. This lake attracts a wide variety of Animals including tens of thousands of Galápagos land iguanas (Conolophus subcristatus) that lay their eggs in nests within the caldera.