The highest amount of steam and ash in recorded history was created by a volcanic eruption in January.
The height of the column was 35 miles above sea level.
It's the first volcano eruption seen to have punched through the mesosphere completely.
Simon Proud is an atmospheric scientist at Oxford University.
The eruption was one of the largest volcanic eruptions of all time. It took some clever detective work to measure the height of its cloud.
The temperature profile measured by satellites is used to estimate the volcano's height. These satellites can detect volcanic eruptions.
The temperature of the top of the plume can be used to estimate its height.
At an altitude of around 12 kilometers, the temperature profile of the plume becomes warmer and this causes this strategy to lose accuracy. A group of researchers led by Proud took a different path.
The measurement was based on the angle of the sun's rays. Parallax is when objects close to you seem to shift from side to side compared to their background.
The basis of depth perception in binocular vision is the difference between the positions of two objects. The distance to objects in view is worked out by our brains. Parallax can be used to calculate distances.
The researchers used data from three weather satellites that took pictures every 10 minutes to get the parallax measurement.
Proud and his team calculated the altitude using this information. NASA scientists used data from two satellites to calculate the altitude back in January.
Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines was the highest volcano on record when it erupted in 1991.
The Mount Pinatubo eruption registered as a 6 on the volcanic explosivity index and the Hunga-Tonga eruption registered as a 6.
An easy answer to this one is available. The maximum height would have been 39 kilometers if Mount Pinatubo techniques had been used.
We don't know what the mechanisms are for Mount Pinatubo's altitude. That could be a fun topic to discuss.
Since no other volcanic plume has reached that high, the effects have been indirect.
There is a hazy substance at the top of the Hunga-Tonga.
More work needs to be done to understand the event.
Andrew Prata is an atmospheric physicist at Oxford University and he wants to apply this technique to other eruptions and develop a dataset of plume heights that can be used to model the dispersion of volcanic ash in the atmosphere.
Why did the Tonga plume go so high is a science question we would like to know more about. The climate impacts of this eruption are unknown. What was the composition of the piece of equipment?
The research has appeared in a journal.
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