“Hell” in the solar system covered by volcanoes

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – NASA’s Juno spacecraft captured an infrared image of Jupiter’s moon Io from a distance of 80,000 kilometers.

In this new image from July 5, you can see lava flows and lava lakes as red dots like “hell” in the solar system.

“You can see volcanic hotspots. We were able to monitor during the primary mission — more than 30 orbits — how these changed and developed,” said Scott Bolton, principal investigator on NASA’s Juno spacecraft, quoted by Science Alert , Friday (16/12/2022).

I myself host hundreds of volcanoes. But strangely, scientists have found more volcanic spots in the polar regions than in the equatorial regions of the planet.

The Juno spacecraft has been orbiting Jupiter since 2016. After studying the gas giant, Juno flew past Jupiter’s moon Ganymede in 2021 and flew past Europa earlier this year.

The spacecraft is expected to explore Io, which NASA says is the most volcanic place in the solar system. This is the first of nine Juno flybys planned over the next year and a half.

Scientists hope to glean more data about the moon’s volcanoes and their magnetism, which serves as a “tug-of-war” to form Jupiter’s auroras, as they fly past them.

“When we see volcanoes change and become active and less active, they are driving the magnetosphere of the giant monster Jupiter,” Bolton said on Wednesday.

The data and insights Juno has gained could help inform future missions to study Jupiter’s moons, such as NASA’s Clipper mission, which will investigate whether Europa could support life.

[Gambas:Video CNBC]