Io is one of Jupiter’s four large moons. If you look at the gas planet with a telescope, you will see that the gas giant is surrounded by four white dots, including Io. The moon has more than 400 (!) volcanoes, making it the most volcanically active celestial body in the solar system. These volcanoes spew sulfur dioxide into the air, giving the moon its own atmosphere, but a large part also ends up in space.
You may wonder why Io is so volcanically active. This is because of Jupiter. The gas giant’s enormous gravity pulls on the moon, generating friction and heat in Io. The two larger moons Ganymede and Europa also lend a helping hand. This causes Io’s interior to heat up and volcanoes to form on its surface.
The space photo of the week is a razor-sharp mosaic, consisting of several photos taken by the Galileo space probe. This space probe flew 130,000 kilometers above the pockmarked surface of the natural satellite on July 3, 1999. The colors of the photo are true and correspond to what we humans would see when we visit the moon. In the photo below, details from three kilometers in size are visible, including volcanoes.
In the photo you also see yellow, white and orange spots. This is frozen sulfur dioxide ice covered with a layer of volcanic dust. The largest volcano on Io is Loki Patera. This volcano has a diameter of 202 kilometers and produces the most heat of all volcanoes in our solar system. In fact, the volcano is more energetic than all the volcanoes on our planet combined. Loki erupts almost annually and those eruptions can be seen from the Earth’s surface.
Dunes on Io
Io still keeps scientists busy today. Last year, researchers discovered that dunes are likely to be found on the pizza moon. And that’s strange. “Although the winds on Io blow much faster than on Earth (at a speed of up to 1,000 kilometers per hour), their strength is much more limited than on Earth,” researcher George McDonald tells Scientias.nl. In fact, the winds on Io are 100,000 times weaker than the winds on Earth. The dunes on Io are not formed by wind, but by lava flows that evaporate underground snow.
Is there life around Jupiter?
Unfortunately, there is no mission to Io for the time being. The American space agency is sending a spacecraft to another Jovian moon: Europa. The so-called Europa Clipper will arrive at the moon around 2030 and will perform dozens of flybys of Europa. In this way, astronomers hope to learn more about the ocean hidden beneath the thick ice crust. “The prediction of a hot, rocky interior and submarine volcanoes on Europa increases the likelihood that the vast ocean is a habitable environment,” said researcher Robert Pappalardo. That would be good news for the search for extraterrestrial life.
In recent decades, space telescopes and satellites have taken beautiful pictures of nebulae, galaxies, stellar nurseries and planets. Every weekend we take an impressive space photo from the archive. Enjoy all the photos? View them on this page.
2023-12-25 13:00:40
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