Astronomers Tracked Huge Lava Waves Rolling Across The Surface Of Jupiter’s Moon Io

The most important news right now astronomers have tracked to huge lava waves rolling across the surface of Jupiter's moon Io. Io is the fourth largest moon of planet Jupiter. It is one of the most volcanically active bodies in the Solar System.

After telescope observation scientist says, the volcanic waves of Jupiter's Io commence from different points on the west of the vast Loki Patera basin. According to them, it spurred around in opposite direction until they met on the other side months later. The speed of clockwise lava wave was near about one kilometer per day while the other lava wave moving twice fast.

Now researchers have made an instrument with imaging technology and "adaptive optics". This instrument allowed the astronauts to spot the lava waves on a sea of lava 391 million miles away with a telescope, reported by The Newsweek. During a rare orbital alignment, researchers used the large binocular telescope to observe Jupiter's moon Io.

In March 2015, Jupiter's moon Europa moved in front of Io. As a result, it blocked out more light coming from the massive Loki Patera. To understand this very well, scientist developed a heat map that shows the temperature varied across the carter. Scientist Katherine de Kleer from the University of California said the brightest regions indicated the freshest, warmest lava wave, while dimmer regions pointed to older and colder material.

Their analysis indicates the volcanic lava was turned over in two waves. One lava wave started from the northwest, moved clockwise towards the west and another lava wave started to form the west of the crater and moved anticlockwise towards the east, reported in Nature. Researchers again said that the process unleashes lava waves that spread across the whole basin.

In addition, the brightness of Io's surface has been known since 1979 when NASA's Voyager spacecraft flew past. However, scientist hopes to make more observation of lava waves of Io. But they will not able to do until 2021, the experiment will resume again when Io and Europa will align again.