Juno’s Microwave Vision Peers Beneath Surface of Jupiter’s Volcanic Moon Io
The Microwave Radiometer found multiple shallow heat anomalies, including a major source at Zal Montes Patera, and temperatures rose more than 40 degrees Fahrenheit within feet.
- NASA's Juno spacecraft captured the first-ever measurements of subsurface heat on Io, revealing significant internal heating beneath Jupiter's most volcanically active moon. Findings published Wednesday in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets break new observational ground.
- Relentless tidal flexing from Jupiter's gravity powers Io's extreme volcanism as the moon orbits in a slightly elliptical path. This repeated stretching and squashing generates internal heat many times greater than Earth's.
- Using the Microwave Radiometer , researchers detected temperatures rising by 40 degrees Fahrenheit just feet beneath the surface. NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientist Shannon Brown noted this gradient is far steeper than solar heating alone can explain.
- Principal investigator Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute explained this ability to probe below Io's surface offers unique insights into tidal heating. This fundamental process fuels subsurface oceans on other moons, including Europa and Ganymede.
- Observations also revealed Io's surface is surprisingly smooth, with low-density patches resembling pumice or volcanic ash. Findings coincide with active lava flows detected at the Zal Montes Patera complex, characterizing this world's intense geologic activity.
11 Articles
11 Articles
What lurks beneath the volcanoes of Jupiter's moon Io? NASA's Juno probe just took a peek
Scientists have measured temperatures beneath the surface of Jupiter's volcanic moon Io, offering the first-ever glimpse of the hidden heat driving the most volcanically active world in the solar system.During close flybys of Io in late 2023 and early 2024, NASA's Juno spacecraft turned its Microwave Radiometer (MWR) instrument toward the moon, probing roughly six to 20 feet (two to six meters) beneath its surface. Originally designed to peer th…
Io’s Hidden Heat Revealed for the First Time
Source: Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets Io—Jupiter’s third-largest moon—is constantly kneaded and deformed by the gravitational pull of Jupiter and two of its other moons, Europa and Ganymede. The resulting friction inside Io generates extreme internal heat, fueling volcanoes that erupt all over its surface. In fact, Io is more volcanically active than any other world in our solar system. Nearly all prior observations of Io’s heat have …
Jupiter's moon Io is the most volcanically active body in the solar system, with hundreds of active volcanoes that can shoot sulphur plumes more than 500 kilometres above its surface — a landscape so extreme that early Voyager scientists initially mistook the plume images for camera errors
When Voyager 1 flew past Jupiter in March 1979, scientists expected its moon Io to be cold, battered and geologically quiet. Instead, the spacecraft photographed a world with no obvious impact craters, a surface stained yellow, orange, red and black, and something enormous rising beyond its edge. That strange crescent was the first volcanic plume ever seen beyond Earth. It revealed a moon so violently active that its surface is continually repai…
Juno’s Microwave Vision Peers beneath Surface of Jupiter’s Volcanic Moon Io
New data from NASA’s Juno spacecraft show temperatures spike more than 20 degrees Celsius just a few meters under Io’s surface, providing the first look at what’s happening below the crust of the Solar System’s most volcanic world. The post Juno’s Microwave Vision Peers beneath Surface of Jupiter’s Volcanic Moon Io appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.
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