In this monthly feature, we span the globe to examine Our Changing Landscape with a time series of medium-resolution PlanetScope satellite imagery. The PlanetScope constellation dates back to 2016 and collects hundreds of millions of square kilometers of four and eight-band 3-meter imagery daily! In February, we looked at the first major Colorado winter storm of 2024, which dumped nearly 3 feet of snow in the state and shut down most major highways with blizzard-like conditions. For the March edition of this series, we check out the November 2024 eruption of Mount Lewotobi Lake-laki, which is located on the island of Flores in Indonesia.

Click on the image above to see an animation of 3-meter natural color PlanetScope image collected over Mount Lewotobi Laki-laki on October 12, November 13 and 18, 2024. In the first image you can see Mt. Lewotobi Laki-laki in all of its glory before its eruption on November 8th. In the two subsequent images from November, you can see an active smoke plume and then the full extent of the damage to the island which is catastrophic. In the final slide, we have circled a prime area of destruction where all of the trees have been incinerated and significant lava flows have poured out of the active volcano. Perhaps even more tragic is the village to the northwest of Mt. Lewotobi Laki-laki which looks to be completely nihilated by the volcanic eruption – in fact over 10,000 residents were displaced and at least nine lost their lives. So tragic, our heart is with this island community as it works to recover from this natural disaster. (Images Courtesy: © Planet 2025)

The PlanetScope Microsat Constellation

PlanetScope is a constellation of more than 240 microsats referred to individually as Doves. Each Dove is able to collect up to 20,000 square kilometers (sq km) per day of 3-meter (m) 4-band multispectral (i.e. blue, green, red and near-infrared [NIR]) imagery; and newly launched SuperDoves collect 8-band multispectral adding in valuable red-edge spectral data. Across the constellation, PlanetScope is archiving more than 200 million sq km of medium-resolution imagery a day, making it the go to source for daily imagery over most locations. This massive archive dates back to 2016, offering the most complete and continuous record of spatial data on the planet since the start of the constellation’s ongoing launch schedule. Collecting 3-meter multispectral imagery is the equivalent of ‘high-resolution’ multispectral data imaged by a 75-centimer (cm) satellite (as this satellite would feature 75-cm panchromatic and 3-m multispectral), making PlanetScope an extremely competitively priced option at just $2.25 per sq km. With well registered images and nearly daily collections of most locations, PlanetScope is the ideal imagery source for this current-events focused series, Our Changing Landscape.

November 2024 Eruption of Mount Lewotobi Laki-laki on the Island of Flores, Indonesia

Mount Lewotobi is a twin volcano located on the southeastern part of the island of Flores, Indonesia. It has two peaks – Lewotobi Laki-laki (male Lewotobi) and Lewotobi Perempuan (female Lewotobi), both of which are stratovolcanoes. The more active Lewotobi Laki-laki is located around 1.3 miles northwest of the taller Lewotobi Perempuan.

Since December 23, 2023, Lewotobi Lake-laki has been active, causing the displacement of up to 6,500 people as of January 2024. It’s one of 120 active volcanoes in Indonesia, an archipelago of 280 million people. The country is prone to earthquakes, landslides and volcanic activity because it sits along the “Ring of Fire,” a horseshoe-shaped series of seismic fault lines around the Pacific Ocean.

On November 4, 2024, the volcano spewed molten debris towards several villages approximately 2.5 miles away, killing at least 10 people and destroying homes. In order to protect people in the area, the Centre of Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation recommended that a 4.3-mile radius around the volcano be evacuated, which included seven villages.

Three days later, a larger eruption happened and on November 8, the volcano erupted multiple times with one outburst emitting an ash plume recorded at 6.2 miles high. On November 9, Mount Lewotobi erupted yet again, prompting the evacuation of approximately 16,000 more people, disrupting flights in Bali and cancelling a jazz festival in Labuan Bajo. A total of 2,384 houses and public facilities were damaged or had collapsed after tons of volcanic material hit the buildings. While visiting the devastated areas, officials found craters, where rocks fell during eruptions, up to 43 feet wide and 16 feet deep, in several places including a destroyed school.

If you would like to find out more about using 3-meter PlanetScope imagery for your academic studies, engineering projects or any landscape analysis, let us know at sales@apollomapping.com or (303) 993-3863.