January 18 - 2022 When an underwater volcano in the Pacific island nation of Tonga erupted violently in mid-January, it spawned a tsunami that devastated many of its islands and struck far-off shores across the ocean. But the vast volcanic explosion also generated something that scientists hadn’t seen in more than half a century: a planetary-scale pressure wave, or shockwave, in the atmosphere. The wave circled Earth for days. Dramatic images from space captured the eruption in real-time. A massive plume of ash, gas, and steam spewed up to 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) into the atmosphere, and tsunami waves were sent crashing across the Pacific. In 2014 The eruption of the underwater Hunga Tonga volcano in December had created a new island in the South Pacific. My observation As it did not exist, it was made and destroyed.