![]() The tidal forces generate a tremendous amount of heat within Io, keeping much of its subsurface crust in liquid form seeking any available escape route to the surface to relieve the pressure. Credit: NASA Visualization Technology Applications and Development (VTAD) This current takes the path of least resistance along Jupiter's magnetic field lines to the planet's surface, creating lightning in Jupiter's upper atmosphere.Ī 3D model of Io, a volcanic moon of Jupiter. Io can develop 400,000 volts across itself and create an electric current of 3 million amperes. ![]() Io's orbit, keeping it at more or less a cozy 262,000 miles (422,000 kilometers) from Jupiter, cuts across the planet's powerful magnetic lines of force, thus turning Io into a electric generator. On Earth, in the place where tides are highest, the difference between low and high tides is only 60 feet (18 meters), and this is for water, not solid ground. Compare these tides on Io's solid surface to the tides on Earth's oceans. These forces cause Io's surface to bulge up and down (or in and out) by as much as 330 feet (100 meters). Thus, in its widely varying distances from Jupiter, Io is subjected to tremendous tidal forces. Orbit and RotationĪlthough Io always points the same side toward Jupiter in its orbit around the giant planet, the large moons Europa and Ganymede perturb Io's orbit into an irregularly elliptical one. Size and DistanceĪ bit larger than Earth's Moon, Io is the third largest of Jupiter's moons, and the fifth one in distance from the planet. Io’s remarkable activity is the result of a tug-of-war between Jupiter's powerful gravity and smaller but precisely timed pulls from two neighboring moons that orbit farther from Jupiter – Europa and Ganymede. ![]() In addition to studies of Jupiter and the elements surrounding it, IoIO is observing the sodium "tail" that follows Mercury and planets outside the solar system, exoplanets, as they transit the face of their stars.Jupiter's rocky moon Io is the most volcanically active world in the solar system, with hundreds of volcanoes, some erupting lava fountains dozens of miles (or kilometers) high. More IoIO units could also provide more time to cover Jupiter's highly dynamic Io plasma torus and sodium nebula. These additional IoIO copies in different global locations could help astronomers continue monitoring the Jovian moon from Earth during gaps enforced by unfavorable weather conditions. "It would be great to see another IoIO come online before Juno gets to Jupiter next December." Almost all of the parts used to build IoIO are available at a high-end camera shop or telescope store," Morgenthaler said. "One of the exciting things about these observations is that they can be reproduced by almost any small college or ambitious amateur astronomer. Jupiter's volcanic moon Io is emitting strange radio waves and NASA's Juno probe is listening Mysterious dunes on Jupiter's volcanic moon Io may be formed by lava NASA probe to inspect the solar system's most active volcanic world, Jupiter's Io ![]() This plasma can be traced back to Io's volcanic activity, meaning that Juno could tell astronomers if the volcanic outburst of Fall 2022 had a different chemical makeup than other Io eruptions.īefore Juno can get close enough for such an investigation, however, Morgenthaler is hoping more versions of IoIO could be up and running across the globe. Juno is set for a close flyby of Io in December 2023 and its instruments are sensitive to plasma around Jupiter. ![]() The IoIO observations could be followed up by NASA's Juno spacecraft which has been orbiting the gas giant since 2016. "This could be telling us something about the composition of the volcanic activity that produced the outburst or it could be telling us that the torus is more efficient at ridding itself of material when more material is thrown into it," Morgenthaler said in a statement. The image was produced by the Planetary Science Institute's Io Input/Output observatory (IoIO) (Image credit: Jeff Morgenthaler, PSI) A coronagraph image of a sodium outburst caused by Io's volcanic eruption. ![]()
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