Volcanic eruptions on Jupiter's moon Io.

[jorgebgt]

Volcanic eruptions on Jupiter's moon Io.

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NASA captured the volcanic eruption on Jupiter's moon Io, the glow of the eruption was captured and photographed on October 15 by the Juno probe that is exploring Jupiter and its moons.

The eruption that occurred is in the well-known Prometheus volcano. Prometheus has a crater about 28 km wide, we could fit a large city there, or fit the entire island of Manhattan perfectly inside the crater. A lava flow about 100 km long comes out of the crater and the entire complex is surrounded by deposits of volcanic columns of reddish sulfur and brighter sulfur dioxide.

If demons existed, it would be an ideal place for them to go on vacation because this Prometheus is just one of the 400 active volcanoes on this moon. The volcano was captured for the first time thanks to the Voyager 1 spacecraft in March. of 1979.

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This image is from the flight on October 15, at that time the Juno spacecraft passed about 12,000 km from the surface of the moon, this is just an appetizer of what awaits us on December 30, 2023, that day The Juno spacecraft will pass much closer to Io, it will do so at only 1,500 km from its surface, that is eight times closer than what it was in October and why this Moon is so interesting.

Image created by me with AI

To begin with, it is a large moon, it is 3643 km in diameter, that is a very respectable size, it is somewhat larger than our own moon due to its size, and it is also the most volcanically active object world in the entire solar system, in Io there are about 400 volcanoes. Active, the record is still held by the Earth with 1,350 active volcanoes, but they are not concentrated in a much smaller size and their surface is completely altered due to volcanic activity.

In addition, this Moon appears to have a large iron core about 900 km in diameter and is extremely dry, making it very different from its sisters, Jupiter's large moons Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, which are covered in thick layers of ice. of water and it is even believed that under that water ice there are oceans of liquid water, this is not the case in what is very very dry.

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It is believed that all this infernal and volcanic environment is due to the fact that it is of the large moons that is closest to Jupiter, to the tidal forces, that is, the gravitational pull of Jupiter on the moon is added to the gravitational effects of the moons Europa and Ganymede creating a particular case of orbital resonance called Laplace resonance, a fateful combination for io, if io had an ocean the tides would be eight times higher than the tides of Earth's oceans.

All that stretching and compression energy generates a huge amount of heat that ends up melting the interior of the moon and creating all that impressive volcanic activity. On December 30, the Juno spacecraft will have its closest approach, but it will visit IO again on February 3. 2024, approaching again to about 1500 km high and we will be able to have another view of this world of sulfur and lava landscapes.

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