NASA's Juno probe snaps glowy views of Jupiter's most volcanic moon Io
NASA's Juno spacecraft, launched to Jupiter, is heading towards the planet's third largest moon, Io. As approaching, the probe has snapped ablaze lavas on the moon.
From a distance of 50,000 miles, NASA's Juno spacecraft took an infrared picture of Jupiter's moon Io. The image, which was taken on July 5 and was made public on Wednesday, depicts lava lakes and flows as bright red spots.
There are volcanoes on the satellite that constantly spew gas and lava and the spacecraft is scheduled to approach 1,500 kilometers from Io next year.
Before close approach, these pictures showed the closest image of Io, that is the most active moon in terms of volcanic activity in our Solar System.
"You can see volcanic hotspots. We've been able to monitor over the course of the primary mission — over 30 orbits — how this changes and evolves," Scott Bolton, principal investigator for NASA's Juno probe, said.
"As we watch the volcanoes change and get active and less active, they're driving Jupiter's gigantic monster magnetosphere," he added.
Valuable information was obtained from Juno's microwave radiometer during these transitions. The original purpose of this instrument was to study the clouds of Jupiter. But he made measurements on Ganymede and Europa's ice sheets stretching for tens of kilometers.
Scientists attribute special importance to these two moons because both are thought to have deep oceans. This points to a possible sign of life.
