After years of snapping images of Jupiter’s massive world, the Juno spacecraft recently turned its attention to Jupiter’s moons. During a flyby of Jupiter’s most terrifying moon, Juno photographed the charred surface of a volcanic world caught in the haunting tug of gravity.
NASA this week subscriber New images taken by the Juno spacecraft as it flew by Jupiter’s moon Io on October 15. The images reveal an ominous view of the most volcanically active world in the solar system, which has clearly been through a lot over the past 4.5 billion years.
Images taken by Juno are released to the public through the mission website, and more often than not data visualization artists work their magic on raw data to create beautiful displays. This was handled above by a software engineer Kevin Gillwhile the following was edited by Ted Strick.
This is perhaps the clearest view we’ve ever seen of Io as the Juno spacecraft approaches the Moon. The moon’s surface is disfigured by hundreds of volcanoes and lakes of molten silicate lava, which is why the moon appears scorched, as if it has undergone tremendous torment.
The moon is located between the enormous gravitational force of Jupiter, in addition to the gravitational force of its two sister moons, Europa and Ganymede. As a result, the Moon is in a constant state of expansion and compression, which contributes to its volcanic activity.
NASA’s Juno spacecraft, which has been studying the Jovian system since 2016, has observed Io during previous flybys in May and July. Juno too I took a cozy family photo of Jupiter and Io In September, the gas giant and its moon were revealed side by side. The next time Juno approaches the volcanic world will be on December 30, as well as February 1, 2024, and then again on September 20, 2024, as it cautiously approaches the stalking world to collect more data about its activity.
As the innermost of Jupiter’s large moons, Io is the primary source of most of the charged particles in the planet’s magnetosphere, creating a donut-shaped cloud of ions and electrons that surrounds Jupiter. The cloud, known as the Io Plasma Torus, forms when atmospheric gases emerging from Io are ionized.
During upcoming flybys, scientists from the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) will use the Hubble and James Webb telescopes to observe At the same time, observing the Jovian moon from a distance.
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