Flight of the beagle...

Well here's a first on The Kingdom.

A post about geography!

No, I kid you not! Geography.

I am utterly useless at geography, so you can imagine that this must be something pretty unusual to have spawned a post!

At the end of last year, a Nasa satellite crossing over Japan spotted a very special landmass after it sprouted from the waters around the Ogasawara island chain.

Experts from the Japan Meteorological Agency warned that the island, is in fact made up of two landmasses which are gradually fusing and remains highly volatile.

Take a closer look at the satellite image.

Does the shape remind you of anyone?

 I'll give you a clue.

How about Queen Michelle's favourite beagle.

Yup you guessed it. Say hello to Snoopy Island...

The island, off the country's Pacific coast, rose from the sea over the past few weeks as a massive undersea volcano erupted and spewed out magma which cooled to create the new land mass. 

 By Christmas Eve, the island 620 miles south of Tokyo had expanded and it has now linked with existing Nishinoshima island. 

Soon afterwards it was pictured as part of Nasa’s Earth Observatory programme, which noted that the island could have grown large enough to survive for at least a number of years.

 The new mass was named Niijima.

Nasa’s satellite passed over again on Christmas Eve, and found that “only a narrow channel of water appeared to separate the two” islands. It added that “the two islands may soon fuse into one”.

One kick ass island called Snoopy Island.

Now that's the kind of Geography I can understand and get excited about!

Queen Marie