Two latest flybys of Jupiter’s moon Io by NASA’s Juno spacecraft revealed a few gorgeous surprises: a remarkably steep mountain and islands in the course of a burbling lava lake. The brand new findings had been introduced yesterday by Scott Bolton, the principal investigator of the Juno mission, on the European Geophysical Union’s Basic Meeting.
“Io is solely suffering from volcanoes, and we caught just a few of them in motion,” Bolton mentioned in a NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory launch. “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 elements of Io’s floor are as clean as glass, paying homage to volcanically created obsidian glass on Earth.”
The Io flybys passed off in December 2023 and February 2024; Juno got here inside 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) of the moon’s floor. It imaged Io’s northern latitudes, and a few of these close-up pictures had been printed earlier this yr. The spacecraft has additionally imaged Jupiter’s moon Europa, whose icy floor stands in stark dichotomy to Io’s hellish atmosphere. However that imagery pales compared to the visualizations constructed with new Juno knowledge, collected by the spacecraft’s Microwave Radiometer (MWR) and its JunoCam imager.
The Juno group nicknamed the lately visualized mountain “Steeple Mountain.” Although NASA paperwork didn’t state the peak of the construction, Io’s Boosaule Montes is certainly one of its most towering buildings, clocking in at about 10 miles (16 kilometers) tall.
As famous on NASA’s web site, Io’s “fixed volcanism and intense radiation make Io an unlikely vacation spot for all times.” Nonetheless, it’s nonetheless a incredible laboratory for researchers making an attempt to grasp photo voltaic system evolution. Io’s floor is at all times being renewed, as plains of lava coat the present rock and funky into new layers.
Future knowledge from the Juno mission may assist reveal the abundance of water on Jupiter and the character of the planet’s core. However there’s a lot worthwhile to check on Io, which Juno has been orbiting for practically eight years. Juno made its most up-to-date flyby of Io this month, coming inside 10,250 miles (16,500 km) of the moon. Its subsequent flyby is scheduled for Might 12.
Learn extra: How Juno’s Breathtaking Jupiter Pictures Are Made
