NASA released a stunning infrared image of Jupiter's volcanic moon Io taken by the Juno spacecraft on July 5, 2022, when it was about 50,000 miles (80,000 kilometers) away.
The image shows incredible detail on the volcanically active surface of Io as Juno now sets its sights on it after revealing a trove of more information about Jupiter's moons Ganymede and Europa.
Io Is Covered by Hundreds of Volcanoes
The Juno mission is now in its second year and has been extended to further investigate the interior of Jupiter, as per NASA. It is scheduled to obtain more images of Io starting on December 15 as part of its continuing exploration of the Jovian moons. Last year, it observed Ganymede and then Europa earlier this year.
Juno Principal Investigator Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio said that the team is excited about Juno's extended mission, which includes close flybys to obtain a wealth of new information about the Jovian moons. He added that Juno sensors are designed to study the gas giant but they are thrilled that it can perform a double duty of observing Jupiter's moons.
The space agency noted that Io is the most volcanic place in the Solar System and will remain an object of interest for the Juno mission for the next year and a half. Its flyby on December 15 is the first of nine flybys, in which two of which will be taken at a distance of 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) away.
The team behind the Juno mission will use those flybys to perform the first-ever high-resolution monitoring campaign on the volcanic moon to study its volcanos, and learn how its volcanic eruptions interact with the powerful magnetosphere and aurora of Jupiter.
"We've been able to monitor over the course of the primary mission - over 30 orbits - how this changes and evolves," Insider quoted Bolton as he discuss the volcanic hotspots on Io.
Juno's Observations of Ganymede and Europa
Juno's observations on Ganymede and Europa have resulted in numerous papers being published in different scientific journals. Scientists used the data from the mission to discuss the interior, surface composition, magnetosphere, and ionosphere of the moons. A preliminary summary of Juno's September 9 flyby of Europa also included the first 3D observations of its icy shell.
According to SciTech Daily, Juno's Microwave Radiometer (MWR) added a third dimension to the mission's moon exploration during its flybys. It provided a groundbreaking look beneath the water ice crust of Ganymede and Europa to know its structure, purity, and temperature as deep as 15 miles (24 kilometers) below the surface.
Moreso, the JunoCam, obtained visible-light imagery of Ganymede that shows a mixture of older dark terrain, younger bright terrain, bright craters, and linear features that are linked to tectonic activity.
Scientists combined the data from MWR with the surface images and found differences in various terrain types. They suggested that Ganymede's conductive ice shell may have an average thickness of about 30 miles or more considering that ice may be thicker in certain regions of the moon's surface.
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