When you buy through links on our site , we may realize an affiliate delegacy . Here ’s how it process .
A new animation reveals an enormous lava lake on the surface of Jupiter ’s moon Io .
The airless - up panorama comes fromNASA ’s Juno spacecraft , which swept within 930 miles ( 1,500 klick ) of the volcanic surface of Io in December 2023 and January 2024 . These flybys provided the closest flavor ever at Jupiter ’s inmost large moon . Io host hundreds of active volcanoes . According toNASA , their eruptions are sometimes so powerful that they can be seen with scope on Earth .
The new images show Loki Patera , a 127 - mi - farseeing ( 200 km ) lava lake on Io ’s Earth’s surface . Scientists have been observing this lava lake for decades . It sit over the magma reservoirs under Io ’s surface . The cooling lava at the center of the lake is ringed by perhaps molten magma around the edges , Scott Bolton , principal investigator for the Juno missionary post , saidduring a news conferenceWednesday ( April 16 ) at the European Geophysical Union General Assembly in Vienna .
" The specular reflection our instruments recorded of the lake paint a picture parts of Io ’s surface are as smooth as drinking glass , resonant of volcanically createdobsidian glass on Earth , " Bolton enounce .
Rugged island of rock candy herd the lava lake ’s interior . " There is amazing detail showing these crazy islands implant in the midriff of a potentially magma lake rimmed with spicy lava , " Bolton say .
relate : Uranus and Neptune are n’t made of what we think , new study wind
— NASA unveil sibylline message from Earth to be ship to Jupiter ’s icy ocean moon Europa
— Jupiter ’s moon Europa lacks oxygen , making it less hospitable for sustaining life-time
— An eerie look at Io , the most volcanic world in the solar organization
Juno ’s instrumental role have determined that Io ’s aerofoil is smoother than the open of Jupiter ’s three other Galilean moons ( Europa , Ganymede and Callisto ) . Io is slightly larger than Earth ’s lunar month , and the surfaces that are n’t molten are largely covered with icteric sulfur and sulfur dioxide .
Juno continues to fell overJupiter , gather information about its dramatic polar cyclones , each of which is the breadth of the continental U.S. The mission is also assess levels of O and hydrogen in Jupiter ’s atmosphere . The spacecraft will make out its 61st flyby of Jupiter on May 12 .
