[7] A study with the ESA satellite Sentinel-5P revealed volcano's sulphur dioxide plume had clustered into distinct structures in the 72 hours following the eruption.

One of these plumes was a swirling stratospheric mass of sulphur dioxide that circled the globe three times and ascended to an altitude of some 27 km (17 mi) through the radiative heating of ash.

Such self-containing and long-lived anticyclonic structures have long been associated with large wildfires, but stable volcanic plumes are seldom reported and only form in certain conditions.

Raikoke was visited by hunting and fishing parties of the Ainu, but there was no permanent habitation at the time of European contact.

After World War II, it came under the control of the Soviet Union, and is now administered as part of the Sakhalin Oblast of Russia.