Mount Vesuvius, a volcano that last erupted in 1944, stands out clearly in this infrared image showing the Bay of Naples. The city of Naples is on the coast to the left of center. Red indicates vegetation and blue-green an absence of vegetation (both urban areas and bare rock). Note the rich vegetation growing on the fertile lower slopes of Vesuvius in a ring around the central cone. Vesuvius is famous for catastrophic eruption in 79 AD that buried the Roman towns of Herculaneum (to the east of modern Naples) and Pompeii (on the plain to the southeast of the volcano) under ash and debris flows up to 23 meters thick.