Credits:
Processing: Andrea Luck CC BY
Image data: INAF/LargeBinocularTelescope Observatory/Georgia State University
IRV-band observations by SHARK-VIS@LBT [P.I. F. Pedichini]
Io's south pole
Io's south pole region, photographed for the first time ever thanks to the JunoCam instrument on NASA's Juno spacecraft.Image: Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS; Image processing: Gerald Eichstädt / Thomas Thomopoulos (CC BY)
Io appears to have been volcanic for its entire 4.5-billion-year lifetime. New research using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) suggests that the moon of Jupiter, which today is the most volcanically active body in the Solar System, has likely maintained this level of activity since it was first formed.
Io is the innermost and second-smallest of the four Galilean moons of the planet Jupiter.
is among the hottest things in the Solar System. Volcanoes like the one pictured above in Io’s Tvashtar Catena region spew lava onto the moon’s surface that reaches searing temperatures.
Io is the innermost and second-smallest of the four Galilean moons of the planet Jupiter.