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A NASA spacecraft is preparing for the first in a series of close encounters with the most volcanic place in the solar system. The Juno spacecraft will fly by Jupiter’s moon Io on Thursday, December 15.
The maneuver will be one of them Nine flights of Io were flown by Juno over the next year and a half. The two encounters will take place just 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) from the lunar surface.
Juno captured an infrared view of Io shining July 5 from 50,000 miles (80,000 kilometers) away. The brightest spot in the image corresponds to the hottest temperatures on Io, which is home to hundreds of volcanoes, some of which can spew lava fountains tens of miles high.
Scientists will use Juno’s observations of Io to learn more about the volcanic network and how its eruptions interact with Jupiter. The moon is constantly pulled by Jupiter’s enormous gravity.
“The team is very pleased that the Juno mission extension includes studies of Jupiter’s moons. With each short flight, we can gain a lot of new information,” Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, said in a statement.
“Juno’s sensors were designed to study Jupiter, but we’re pleased with how well they can do double duty by observing Jupiter’s moons.”
The spacecraft recently captured new images of Jupiter’s northernmost storm on Sept. 29. Jupiter’s atmosphere is dominated by hundreds of storms, many of which concentrate at the planet’s poles.
The Juno spacecraft has been orbiting Jupiter since 2016 to find out more details about the giant planet and focus on the flyby of Jupiter’s moons during its extended mission, which began last year and is expected to continue until the end of 2025.
Juno will pass by Jupiter’s moon Ganymede in 2021, followed by Europa earlier this year. The spacecraft is using its instruments to search beneath the icy crusts of both moons and collect data on Europa’s interior, where a salty ocean is thought to lie.
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The ice shell that forms Europa’s surface is between 10 and 15 miles (16 and 24 kilometers) thick, and the overlying ocean is estimated to be 40 to 100 miles (64 to 161 kilometers) deep.
The data and images captured by Juno could help inform two separate missions headed to Jupiter’s moons over the next two years: the European Space Agency’s JUpiter ICy Satellite Explorer and NASA’s Europa Clipper mission.
The first, due to launch in April 2023, will spend three years deep-diving Jupiter and its three icy moons: Ganymede, Callisto and Europa. All three moons are believed to have oceans beneath an ice-covered crust, and scientists want to investigate whether Ganymede’s oceans are habitable.
The Europa Clipper will launch in 2024 to perform a series of 50 special flights around the Moon following its arrival in 2030. Finally, from an altitude of 1,700 miles (2,736 kilometers) to 16 miles (26 kilometers) above the lunar surface , may be able to help scientists determine whether deep oceans really exist and whether the moon can support life.
