(Image source: NASA)

BY STEVEN SPARKMAN

If you’re looking for the hot new place to visit, you might be interested in the newest and hottest place around -- a brand new island, born just this month. MSNBC has more.

“Right there is the newest spot on Earth. Volcanic ash from an underwater volcano formed a new island in the Red Sea, just off the coast of Yemen. But don’t pack your bags, no vacation there just yet -- it may soon disappear since it is made solely of volcanic debris.”

This is the first eruption by this particular volcano since the mid 1800s. New Scientist says -- according to reports -- it put on quite a show.

“Yemeni fishermen first spotted lava spewing 30 metres into the air on 19 December … By 23 December, the lava mass had broken the water's surface and the new island had begun to take shape. The island is currently around 500m wide and is still growing.”

After the initial reports, NASA turned a few of its instruments on the area and captured the birth of the new landmass.

One of their satellites, the Earth Observing-1, snapped this photo of the island with its towering smoke plume. Compare that to an earlier image, like this one from 2007, which shows an empty expanse where the smoky hotspot now stands. (Image source: NASA)

The new island, which doesn’t have a name yet, has a family. It turns out it’s directly related to the other islands in those photos -- they all share the same volcanic parent. A blogger for Our Amazing Planet explains.

“The volcanic activity occurred along the Zubair Group, a collection of small islands that run in a roughly northwest-southeast line. The islands rise from a shield volcano (a kind of volcano built from fluid lava flows) and poke above the sea surface.”

So what’s in store for the baby island? A volcanologist tells CNN most new islands don’t survive very long -- but this one may have a fighting chance.

“Wordwide, new islands emerge from volcanic eruptions about once every few years, and not all of them survive beyond three years, because waves can break them apart … It's not clear whether the new Red Sea island will last, but the material that emerges from the Red Sea typically is more structurally sound than other areas...”