A paper on the source of Io’s volcanism was published on Thursday, Dec. 12, in the Nature’s Journal, during a media briefing in Washington at the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting, the country’s largest gathering of Earth and space scientists.
44 Year-old Enigma regarding the origin of Io’s high volcanic activity has been resolved thanks to a recent discovery made by NASA’s Juno spacecraft. New information about Io, the third-largest moon of Jupiter and the most volcanic planet in our solar system, has been made public by NASA. The land of Io is home to more than 400 active volcanoes that produce breathtaking lava flows and eruptions that shoot plumes into space.
In December 2023 and February 2024, the Juno spacecraft flew by Io quite closely, approaching its pizza-faced surface within roughly 930 miles (1,500 kilometers). In order to assess Io’s gravity by monitoring its impact on the spacecraft’s acceleration, Juno exchanged high-precision, dual-frequency Doppler data with NASA’s Deep Space Network throughout the near approaches.
