Underwater Plume and Swirling Clouds Captured in Satellite Image
A recent satellite photo captured by NASA's Terra satellite has revealed a stunning image of a giant underwater plume and swirling clouds in the East China Sea.
The image, taken on February 19, 2026, shows a "street" of swirling clouds alongside a giant, multicolor plume in the waters between South Korea, China, and Japan.
The swirling clouds, known as a Kármán vortex street or von Kármán vortices, were carved out by winds that whipped around a 6,400-foot-tall shield volcano on South Korea's Jeju Island. The volcano, known as Hallasan, is located in the East China Sea around 60 miles south of the Korean Peninsula.
When the winds are just right, air streams around the elevated peak, creating counterrotating vortices on the leeward side that can sculpt nearby clouds into the swirling patterns we see in this image.
The three largest swirls collectively stretch roughly 230 miles from end to end.
The photo also reveals a thick curtain of brownish sediment stretching beneath the waves along China's eastern coastline, including off Shanghai. Most of this sediment was discharged by the Yangtze River, the third-longest waterway on Earth.
A more distinct plume of yellow and green sediment extends up to 270 miles from the coast, appearing to almost touch the von Kármán vortices.
The elongated, pale plume is likely the result of increased turbulence in the Yangtze caused by high rainfall, coupled with stronger seasonal currents and vertical ocean mixing in the winter.
It is not unusual to see von Kármán vortices swirling in the cloudy skies near islands with large peaks, such as Mexico's Guadalupe Island or Spain's Canary Islands. Similarly, large sediment plumes are often photographed by satellites.
However, it is much rarer to see such oceanographic and atmospheric phenomena occur side by side.
The image was captured using the MODIS instrument on NASA's Terra satellite.
The image provides a unique glimpse into the complex interactions between ocean currents and atmospheric winds in the region.
Jeju Island, where the volcano is located, was created by a submarine volcanic eruption around 2 million years ago and has been inhabited by the Indigenous Jeju people for at least 8,000 years.
A 2025 study found that people on the island today have unique genetic mutations leftover from this group, which may help the local Jeju Haenyeo ("women of the sea") free dive for food in deep and cold waters without specialized equipment.
Hallasan, the volcano, is the tallest mountain in Korea and is technically an active volcano, although it has not erupted since A.D. 1007.
It is renowned for its extensive system of subsurface lava tubes, which are among the "finest" in the world, according to UNESCO.
The image was captured by Harry, a U.K.-based senior staff writer at Live Science, who covers a wide range of topics including space exploration, planetary science, space weather, climate change, animal behavior, and paleontology.
