Satellite imagery has probably provided evidence to a team of geophysicists that a number of volcanoes did not erupt with the rise in magma, rather inflated prior to the same.

Data from Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) was analyzed by the team from the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science. The same has helped it to say that the prediction of occurrence of a next eruption is possible.

As per the findings, the analysis had been conducted to explore the deformation of volcanoes that occurred prior to eruption in west Sunda Arc of Indonesia. The arc is the one that signifies the boundary between the tectonic plates in East Eurasia underlying Indonesia, which had produced the Sumatra islands and Java.

More than 800 InSAR images were examined, the team has told, which were all from ALOS satellite of the Japanese Space Exploration Agency. 79 volcanoes were focused on between 2006 and 2009 in Indonesia and six volcanic centres showed inflation, of which three exploded later.

"In regions, where volcanoes are prevalent and pose a threat to millions of people, and where ground-based monitoring is sparse, remote sensing via satellite could become a major forecasting tool", study author Estelle Chaussard was quoted as tweeting.