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The dust is present as far as 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) away from the volcano, which stands at 12,448 feet, according to IFLScience. According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Earth Observatory, gold dust is just one of many things being spewed out of Erebus. The volcano sits above a thin slice of crust, so molten rock more easily rises up from Earth's interior. It regularly emits plumes of gas and steam, and occasionally spits out rocks (bombs) in strombolian eruptions, according to NASA. The volcano is perhaps most notorious, however, for the Mount Erebus disaster. On November 28, 1979, Air New Zealand Flight 901 flew head-on into the side of the volcano, killing all 257 people onboard. The flight was part of an Air New Zealand program that allowed passengers to travel on an 11-hour sightseeing flight from Auckland to Antarctica and then back to New Zealand.
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