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"We looked like children in the middle."
Dan Slayback, a NASA researcher, describes his experience of visiting a new Pacific-born island that has been intriguing since the scientists at the US Space Agency.
The volcanic island was born in the ocean in 2015 after an eruption and is part of the Tongan archipelago.
But why did she attract attention?
The island is particularly interesting because only three people in the last 150 years have been born of eruptions. She is part of the group and has survived for months at the mighty erosion of the ocean. But that's not all.
Clues that "lead to Mars"
Understanding how islands form and change on Earth can give clues to the interaction between volcanic lands and ancient water sources on Mars .
NASA researchers monitor the island by satellite. But the reality on the ground can be very different from images captured remotely.
Slayback and a group of students with whom he was instead saying it. When they landed there, they found a scenario very different from the expected one.
Slayback visited the island with a researcher, scientists and Tongan students from the Sea Education Association, an ocean exploration program for university students based at Woods Hole, in Mbadachusetts, United States. . The group arrived aboard a ship of the badociation.
The island is so new that it has no name and that it simply described as HTHH, the name badociation of two neighboring islands, Hunga Tonga and Hunga Ha'apai.
"Most of the island looks like a black gravel – I would not call it sand because the stones are the size of a pea," said Slayback, a scientist at Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA Research Center. in Maryland.
"We used to wear sandals most of the time," he said in a NASA blog.
Scientists also found thirty kites (Onychoprion fuscatus) on the new island – Photo: Dan Slayback
An owl, elmente residing in the vegetation of nearby islands, appeared on the spot during their
Scientists also found thirty stone-killer seabirds ( Onychoprion fuscatus ) in the depressions of the earth around the crater.
holes in the cliffs around the crater are another example. mystery.
"I realized how precious it was to be in person on the island, and once you're there, you can clearly see what's happening on the ground," Slayback said.
"The erosion caused by the rain on the island is much faster than I imagined."
Researchers and students collected rock samples from the Island and measured the terrain using drones and GPS units.
Back in the Goddard Center's lab, Slayback is now working on a 3D model of the island to determine its volume.
The scientist hopes to return to the site next year to find clues to decipher some of its many mysteries.
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