Io orbits the planet Jupiter, which itself orbits the Sun at a distance of million miles million kilometers. Tidal Lock: Over 1. The moon Io is the most volcanically active world in the solar system.
Io even has lakes of molten silicate lava on its surface. Io has no known moons of its own, but it is possible for moons to have moons. Io has no known rings, but it does create a gaseous torus of material along its orbit around Jupiter.
Most recently, New Horizons observed Io en route to Pluto. Io almost certainly could not support life as we know it. Global image of Io true color. Jupiter and Io. The next full Moon is the Beaver Moon, and there will be a near-total lunar eclipse. While in orbit around the moon, Apollo 15 astronauts took images of a strange volcanic deposit known as Ina.
Research suggested that Ina was quite young and might have formed in a localized burst of volcanic activity, though most of the moon's volcanism occurred between 3. But now photos from the LRO spacecraft — an orbiter that arrived at the moon in — show that Ina has lots of company.
Scientists spotted 70 similar patches in the dark volcanic plains on the side of the moon that faces Earth. These distinctive rock deposits are called irregular mare patches.
They're marked by a mixture of smooth, rounded mounds with blotches of rough, blocky terrain, and, on average, they're less than a third of a mile meters across. Due to so many people wanting to use these telescopes, she sometimes viewed Io for as little as 20 minutes at a time, but doing this over five years allowed her to build up a considerable dataset.
As ever, Loki Patera stole the show. They then predicted an eruption should occur in September of this year, and they were instead treated to a colossal paroxysm in early July, one which, against all expectations, ended just a few days later. When parts of the lava lake there cool, they sink beneath the surface, and this might trigger a progressive, sweeping wave pattern seen at the surface.
The data also seem to confirm another Ionian mystery: Bright eruptions dominate on the trailing hemisphere of Io, the back side of the moon in terms of its orbital motion around Jupiter.
While it may seem as if the new study delivers more questions than it answers, the work highlights the many ways a better grasp on Io can help unravel mysteries on Earth and other geologically active bodies. All rights reserved. Editor's Note: This story has been updated to note that Ashley Davies is a coauthor on the new Io research, and to clarify the definition of Io's trailing hemisphere.
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