New Images of Jupiter's Moon Io Capture Infernal Volcanic Landscape
A NASA spacecraft swooped past Io, one of Jupiter’s largest moons and the most volcanically active world in our solar system. The spacecraft, the Juno orbiter, made its closest flyby yet of Io’s turbulent landscape, and sent back snapshots speckled with sharp cliffs, edgy mountain peaks, lakes of pooled lava and even a volcanic plume.
“I was in awe,” said Scott Bolton, a physicist at the Southwest Research Institute and principal investigator of the Juno mission. Dr. Bolton noted how “incredibly colorful” Io is — tinted in orangy browns and yellows because of the presence of sulfur and flowing lava. He likened the moon to a pepperoni pizza.
Studying these features can help scientists figure out what drives Io’s volcanoes, some of which shoot lava dozens of miles into space, and confirm that this activity comes from an ocean of magma hidden beneath the moon’s crust. Deciphering the secrets of the volcanoes may eventually reveal the influence Jupiter has over its eruptions, which could be a clue to how the gas giant and its satellites formed.
The Juno spacecraft, designed to study the origin and evolution of Jupiter, arrived at the planet in 2016. NASA extended the mission in 2021, and the orbiter has since captured photos of the Jovian moons Ganymede, Europa and most recently Io.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/04/science/nasa-jupiter-io-moon-pictures.html