Original caption — The Aleutian Islands and the Alaskan peninsula are shown in this image acquired by the MODIS on the Terra satellite, on May 25th, 2006. The Aleutians are a chain of more than 300 small volcanic islands forming an island arc in the Northern Pacific Ocean. They extend about 1,200 miles westward from the Alaskan Peninsula. Nearly all of the islands are part of Alaska, but at the extreme western end of the archipelago are the small, geologically-related, but remote Komandorski Islands, which are considered part of Russia. The Aleutian Islands, with 57 volcanoes among them, are in the northern part of the Pacific Ring of Fire.

• Note There is a small red polygon and smoke plume marking the location of a fire which was occurring at the time the picture was taken, but the blemish is too small to be noticeable after resizing the image to a usable size.