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Mount Vesuvius! Voting for DigitalGlobe’s third annual Top Image of the Year contest opened on December 3 and in just 28 days, more than 30,000 votes were cast via Facebook, Pinterest, Google+, and Twitter. During the first round of voting, both Galešnjak (Island of Love) in Croatia and Mount Vesuvius in Italy led the polls with the most votes and were also featured in Time Magazine and MSNBC's Photo Blog. Not far behind was “Wish,” a large-scale art work in Belfast, Northern Ireland, by Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada with a notable amount of “Likes.” Once the top five images were chosen and the second round of voting began, it was clear that Mount Vesuvius would take the crown (with more than 3,000 votes!) “Wish” was the runner-up, and Galešnjak (Island of Love), the early front-runner, fell back to fourth place. This year’s contest drew 15 times the number of participants compared to 2012, and we look forward to doing this all over again in 2014! We want to thank all those who participated in our Top Satellite Image of the Year contest and helped us select the image that was most worthy. This contest would not be possible without your involvement. About Mount Vesuvius Mount Vesuvius is a volcano about 9 kilometers (5.6 miles) east of Naples, Italy and a short distance from the shore. It is one of several volcanoes which form the Campanian volcanic arc. Vesuvius consists of a large cone partially encircled by the steep rim of a summit caused by the collapse of an earlier and originally much higher structure. Mount Vesuvius is best known for its eruption in AD 79 that led to the burying and destruction of the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Although Vesuvius hasn’t erupted since 1944 and is the only volcano on the European mainland to have erupted within the last hundred years, it is still regarded as one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world because of the population of 3,000,000 people living nearby and its tendency toward explosive eruptions. It is the most densely populated volcanic region in the world. The popular television program 60 Minutes, ran an interesting story about Mount Vesuvius last night - http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/the-destructive-power-of-vesuvius/ GeoEye-1 captured this image on February 19, 2013. The Sensor Elevation Angle was 65.09 degrees. The Sun Elevation was 35.14 degrees, and there was about a 2 percent cloud cover. References: http://geology.com/volcanoes/vesuvius/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Vesuvius
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