This is not a picture of Japan's Mount Ontake volcano

This image of a volcano taken from space was retweeted nearly 4,000 times over the weekend.

But it is not a picture of Mount Ontake in Japan, which erupted without warning on Saturday, killing at least 30 people - it is actually the Sarychev Volcano taken by astronauts at the International Space Station in June 2009.

While astronauts on the International Space Station did fly over Japan on Saturday no images of Mount Ontake taken from space have surfaced yet.

However, the eruption was filmed from the air as well as by eyewitnesses on the ground.

Eyewitnesses also tweeted images of the eruption from Japan's second highest volcano.

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