Imagery from the solar-powered spacecraft gives close-ups of intriguing options on the hellish Jovian moon.
Scientists on NASA’s Juno mission to Jupiter have reworked knowledge collected throughout two latest flybys of Io into animations that spotlight two of the Jovian moon’s most dramatic options: a mountain and an nearly glass-smooth lake of cooling lava. Different latest science outcomes from the solar-powered spacecraft embody updates on Jupiter’s polar cyclones and water abundance.
The brand new findings had been introduced Wednesday, April 16, by Juno’s principal investigator Scott Bolton throughout a information convention on the European Geophysical Union Normal Meeting in Vienna.
Juno made extraordinarily shut flybys of Io in December 2023 and February 2024, getting inside about 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) of the floor, acquiring the primary close-up photos of the moon’s northern latitudes.
“Io is solely suffering from volcanoes, and we caught a couple of of them in motion,” mentioned Bolton. “We additionally obtained some nice close-ups and different knowledge on a 200-kilometer-long (127-mile-long) lava lake known as Loki Patera. There may be wonderful element exhibiting these loopy islands embedded in the course of a doubtlessly magma lake rimmed with sizzling lava. The specular reflection our devices recorded of the lake suggests components of Io’s floor are as {smooth} as glass, paying homage to volcanically created obsidian glass on Earth.”
Maps generated with knowledge collected by Juno’s Microwave Radiometer (MWR) instrument reveal Io not solely has a floor that’s comparatively {smooth} in comparison with Jupiter’s different Galilean moons, but in addition has poles which are colder than center latitudes.
Throughout Juno’s prolonged mission, the spacecraft flies nearer to the north pole of Jupiter with every move. This altering orientation permits the MWR instrument to enhance its decision of Jupiter’s northern polar cyclones. The info permits multiwavelength comparisons of the poles, revealing that not all polar cyclones are created equal.
“Maybe most placing instance of this disparity could be discovered with the central cyclone at Jupiter’s north pole,” mentioned Steve Levin, Juno’s undertaking scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “It’s clearly seen in each infrared and visual gentle photos, however its microwave signature is nowhere close to as robust as different close by storms. This tells us that its subsurface construction should be very totally different from these different cyclones. The MWR workforce continues to gather extra and higher microwave knowledge with each orbit, so we anticipate creating a extra detailed 3D map of those intriguing polar storms.”
One of many mission’s major science objectives is to gather knowledge that would assist scientists higher perceive Jupiter’s water abundance. To do that, the Juno science workforce isn’t trying to find liquid water. As an alternative, they need to quantify the presence of oxygen and hydrogen molecules (the molecules that make up water) in Jupiter’s environment. An correct estimate is essential to piecing collectively the puzzle of our photo voltaic system’s formation.
Jupiter was possible the primary planet to type, and it incorporates a lot of the fuel and dirt that wasn’t included into the Solar. Water abundance additionally has necessary implications for the fuel large’s meteorology (together with how wind currents move on Jupiter) and inside construction.
In 1995, NASA’s Galileo probe supplied an early dataset on Jupiter’s water abundance in the course of the spacecraft’s 57-minute descent into the Jovian environment. However the knowledge created extra questions than solutions, indicating the fuel large’s environment was unexpectedly sizzling and — opposite to what pc fashions had indicated — bereft of water.
“The probe did wonderful science, however its knowledge was thus far afield from our fashions of Jupiter’s water abundance that we thought of whether or not the placement it sampled may very well be an outlier. However earlier than Juno, we couldn’t affirm,” mentioned Bolton. “Now, with latest outcomes made with MWR knowledge, we’ve nailed down that the water abundance close to Jupiter’s equator is roughly three to 4 instances the photo voltaic abundance when in comparison with hydrogen. This definitively demonstrates that the Galileo probe’s entry web site was an anomalously dry, desert-like area.”
The outcomes assist the idea that the throughout formation of our photo voltaic system, water-ice materials could have been the supply of the heavy aspect enrichment (chemical parts heavier than hydrogen and helium that had been accreted by Jupiter) in the course of the fuel large’s formation and/or evolution. The formation of Jupiter stays puzzling, as a result of Juno outcomes on the core of the fuel large recommend a really low water abundance — a thriller that scientists are nonetheless making an attempt to kind out.
Knowledge in the course of the the rest of Juno’s prolonged mission could assist, each by enabling scientists to check Jupiter’s water abundance close to the polar areas to the equatorial area and by shedding further gentle on the construction of the planet’s dilute core.
Throughout Juno’s most up-to-date flyby of Io, on April 9, the spacecraft got here inside about 10,250 miles (16,500 kilometers) of the moon’s floor. It can execute its 61st flyby of Jupiter on Might 12.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of the Southwest Analysis Institute in San Antonio. Juno is a part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program, which is managed at NASA’s Marshall House Flight Middle in Huntsville, Alabama, for the company’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Italian House Company (ASI) funded the Jovian InfraRed Auroral Mapper. Lockheed Martin House in Denver constructed and operates the spacecraft.
Extra details about Juno is accessible at:
https://www.nasa.gov/juno
DC Agle
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-9011
agle@jpl.nasa.gov
Karen Fox / Charles Blue
NASA Headquarters, Washington
301-286-6284 / 202-802-5345
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / charles.e.blue@nasa.gov
Deb Schmid
Southwest Analysis Institute, San Antonio
210-522-2254
dschmid@swri.org
2024-045
