Courtesy: NASA. NASA images by Robert Simmon, using ALI data from the EO-1 team. NASA/JPL/EO-1 Mission/GSFC/Ashley Davies

On March 20, 2010, Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano (pronounced “AYA-feeyapla-yurkul,”) awakened for the first time in 120 years, spewing still-active lava fountains and flows. That day, a NASA “sensor web” — a network of sensors on the ground and aboard NASA’s Earth Observing-1 satellite, alerted researchers to this new volcanic “hot spot.” The eruption was detected by autonomous “sciencecraft” software aboard the satellite, which is known as EO-1.

Sciencecraft software enables the spacecraft to analyze science data onboard to detect scientific events and respond by sending alerts, producing scientific products and/or re-imaging the event.