When NASA’s Juno mission flies by Jupiter’s fiery moon Io on Sunday, July 30, the spacecraft will be making its closest approach yet, coming within 13,700 miles (22,000 kilometers) of it. Data collected by the Italian-built JIRAM (Jovian InfraRed Auroral Mapper) and other science instruments is expected to provide a wealth of information on the hundreds of erupting volcanoes pouring out molten lava and sulfurous gases all over the volcano-festooned moon.
“While JIRAM was designed to look at Jupiter’s polar aurora, its capability to identify heat sources is proving to be indispensable in our hunt for active volcanos on Io,” said Juno Principal Investigator Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. “As we get closer with each flyby, JIRAM and other instruments aboard Juno add to our library of data on the moon, allowing us to not only better resolve surface features but understand how they change over time.”
Launched in 2011, the spinning, solar-powered spacecraft has been studying the Jovian system since 2016 and will begin the third year of its extended mission on July 31.
Io’s Hot Spots
Slightly larger than Earth’s moon, Io is a world in constant torment. Not only is the biggest planet in the solar system forever pulling at it gravitationally, but so are Io’s Galilean siblings – Europa and the biggest moon in the solar system, Ganymede. The result is that Io is continuously stretched and squeezed, actions linked to the creation of the lava seen erupting from its many volcanoes.
During Juno’s last flyby of Io, which occurred May 16, the JunoCam imager took a picture from 22,100 miles (35,600 kilometers) showing a smudge at the moon’s Volund region, near the equator. Such smudges are smoking guns to planetary scientists.
“When I compared it to visible-light images taken of the same area during Galileo and New Horizons flybys (in 1999 and 2007), I was excited to see changes at Volund, where the lava flow field had expanded to the west and another volcano just north of Volund had fresh lava flows surrounding it,” said Jason Perry of the University of Arizona’s HiRISE Operations Center in Tucson. “Io is known for its extreme volcanic activity, but after 16 years, it is so nice to see these changes up close again.
Io’s Hot Spots
Slightly larger than Earth’s moon, Io is a world in constant torment. Not only is the biggest planet in the solar system forever pulling at it gravitationally, but so are Io’s Galilean siblings – Europa and the biggest moon in the solar system, Ganymede. The result is that Io is continuously stretched and squeezed, actions linked to the creation of the lava seen erupting from its many volcanoes.
During Juno’s last flyby of Io, which occurred May 16, the JunoCam imager took a picture from 22,100 miles (35,600 kilometers) showing a smudge at the moon’s Volund region, near the equator. Such smudges are smoking guns to planetary scientists.
“When I compared it to visible-light images taken of the same area during Galileo and New Horizons flybys (in 1999 and 2007), I was excited to see changes at Volund, where the lava flow field had expanded to the west and another volcano just north of Volund had fresh lava flows surrounding it,” said Jason Perry of the University of Arizona’s HiRISE Operations Center in Tucson. “Io is known for its extreme volcanic activity, but after 16 years, it is so nice to see these changes up close again.
