On the Cover: Lava lakes are beautiful, fascinating, and formidable expressions of active volcanism. They, and the volcanoes they top, are portals to Earth’s hot, roiling depths. Nyiragongo volcano, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is one of less than a handful of volcanoes on Earth with an active, long-lived lava lake. In January 2006, Tom Pfeiffer took this photo from only 600 meters above Nyiragongo’s lava lake.Tom Pfeiffer, volcanodiscovery.com
Volume 31, number 2
March/April 2011
Lava Lakes
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Features
4 Your Place In Space: Oh, To Be Young and Spacefaring by Bill Nye
5 Snapshots from Space: Comet Crash by Emily Stewart Lakdawalla
6 Once, We Went to the Moon by John M. Logsdon
10 Lava Lakes on Earth and Io by Ashley Gerard Davies
16 We Make It Happen! FINDS: One Step Closer to Faraway Earths by Amir Alexander
Departments
20 Questions and Answers
22 Members’ Dialogue
23 Society News
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