New kind of water rocket

 

This is the old kind of water rocket (a toy from decades past, but versions can still be purchased now):

So, in this case, water is used to launch a rocket toward space (but not very far toward it).

Recently-released research has shown that when the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano erupted massively last January (wow, we're a week away from the one-year anniversary), it rocketed millions of tons of water into space.

The link above is to the Washington Post article; the link below is to the laboratory press release.

Making a Volcanic Splash: Tonga Eruption Blasted Water Vapor into Outer Space

"As it turned out, the gap the team saw in the FUV [far ultraviolet] observations came from water vapor that the volcano injected 93 miles (150 kilometers) above Earth’s surface — well beyond the boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and space (about 60 miles, or 97 kilometers). The impacted region was approximately 870 miles (1,400 kilometers) wide over the volcano, while the rest of Earth’s upper atmosphere remained unchanged."

So, yet another indication that this was BIG.