Something special will happen on Saturday at Io, one of Jupiter’s four large moons. Then, for the first time in twenty years, a spacecraft comes very close. And that will certainly result in spectacular snapshots.
A day before New Year’s Eve, NASA’s Juno space probe will arrive about 1,500 kilometers from the surface of Io, the largest volcanic world in our solar system. It should provide a mountain of useful data for researchers on Earth.
“By combining data from this flight with previous observations, scientists can study how different Io’s volcanoes are,” said Juno principal investigator Scott Bolton of Texas. “We want to know how often they erupt, how much light they emit and how hot they are, but also how the shape of the lava flow changes and how Io’s activity is connected to the flow of charged particles in Jupiter’s magnetosphere.”
Magma ocean
It is not the only time that Juno, which flies on solar energy, will approach the special moon at a close distance, the space probe will pass by again on February 3 next year. And Juno previously approached the moon at distances between 11,000 and 100,000 kilometers. It provided the first images of the north and south poles of the moon, which is also called the ‘pizza moon’ because of its surface. Juno also visited Jupiter’s icy moons Ganymede and Europa.
When you see this photo, you will know why Io is called ‘the pizza moon’. The yellow, white and orange spots are frozen sulfur dioxide ice, covered in volcanic dust.
But now the space probe is coming one step closer and the astronomers hope to find an answer to another important question, namely what the source of Io’s enormous volcanic activity is: for example, is there a magma ocean hidden beneath the moon’s surface, and how important are Jupiter’s tidal forces, which exert enormous pressure on Io? The space probe, which is already in its third year at Jupiter, will also investigate the rings in which some of the moons are located.
Three cameras
Juno has three cameras on board, all of which do their best to capture everything as best as possible during the flight flyby. Of Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) takes infrared images to measure the heat emitted by volcanoes and craters. The Stellar Reference Unit delivers photos of the surface in the highest resolution yet. And then there is the JunoCam, which makes color images of visible light. It was once added for the general public, but was actually only intended for eight flights past Jupiter. However, the upcoming flyby of Io will be Juno’s 57th orbit around Jupiter. This means that the space probe and its cameras have withstood almost the most intense radiation in our entire solar system for a long time.
“The effects of all that radiation are starting to be felt at JunoCam,” said Ed Hirst, Juno project manager at NASA. “The photos of the last flight are of slightly lower quality. Our technical team is working on solutions to reduce radiation damage and keep the camera working.”
Another extension
Because NASA researchers can’t get enough of it. After the mission has already been extended once, seven additional flybys will pass by Io. In total, Juno will fly past the volcanic moon eighteen times. The laps around Jupiter are going faster and faster. Io’s gravity during the December 30 visit will increase the spacecraft’s orbit from 38 to 35 days, and after the February 3 flyby it will take just 33 days to orbit the gas giant.
The new route results in Jupiter blocking the sun from the spacecraft for five minutes, when the probe is closest to the planet. Although this is the first time the solar-powered spacecraft has flown in the dark since it passed Earth in October 2013, the darkness is too short to impact the spacecraft. And that’s a good thing, because until the end of the journey (end of 2025), Juno will experience solar eclipses like this every time it approaches Jupiter.
Pizzaland Io
Io has more than four hundred volcanoes. There is no celestial body in our solar system that experiences so much volcanic activity. The volcanoes spew sulfur dioxide, creating their own atmosphere around Io. A large part of the sulfur dioxide also ends up in space. The volcanic activity is caused by Jupiter’s enormous gravity, which generates friction and heat in Io. The two larger moons Ganymede and Europa also heat up Io’s interior, causing volcanoes to form on the surface.
2023-12-29 17:30:09
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