![]() ![]() The ALMA images revealed that Io’s atmosphere becomes incredibly unstable when it passes through Jupiter’s massive shadow. The moon is in a tidally locked orbit around Jupiter, meaning that the same side of the moon always faces the planet. Some of its volcanoes are massive, like Loki Patera, which is 124 miles across. ![]() Io is caught between Jupiter’s massive gravity and the tug of orbits from the planet’s other moons like Europa and Ganymede, which contributes to the activity on Io. With such a dramatic landscape it would be an adventure to fly by Io, but you wouldn’t want to live there. The surface is also covered with lakes of molten silicate lava. Some of Io’s volcanoes are so powerful that their eruptions can be seen using large telescopes on Earth. The moon, named for a mortal woman who is transformed into a cow during a fight between Zeus and Hera in Greek mythology, has lava fountains that can erupt to reach dozens of miles high. What’s more, its environment is unlike anything found on Earth. Io is only slightly larger than our moon, but it couldn’t be more different. The researchers believe that this suggests that the magma reservoirs differ between volcanoes. The scientists also saw potassium chloride gas, a common component of magma, emerging from the volcanoes. The clarity of the ALMA images revealed distinct plumes of sulfur dioxide and sulfur monoxide coming from the volcanoes, contributing between 30% to 50% of the moon’s atmosphere. We can therefore see exactly how much of the atmosphere is impacted by volcanic activity,” said Statia Luszcz-Cook, study coauthor and observational astrophysicist at Columbia University, in a statement. During that time we can only see volcanically-sourced sulfur dioxide. “When Io passes into Jupiter’s shadow, and is out of direct sunlight, it is too cold for sulfur dioxide gas, and it condenses onto Io’s surface. Researchers used ALMA to capture images of the moon as it moved into and out of Jupiter’s shadow to understand more about the moon’s atmosphere. “Is it volcanic activity, or gas that has sublimated (transitioned from solid to gaseous state) from the icy surface when Io is in sunlight?” “However, it is not known which process drives the dynamics in Io’s atmosphere,” said study author Imke de Pater, a professor of astronomy, Earth and planetary science at the University of California, Berkeley, in a statement. Previous observations and studies of the moon revealed that this atmosphere is largely comprised of sulfur dioxide gas. Io’s atmosphere is so faint that it’s about a billion times thinner than Earth’s. Although the idea of a moon covered in volcanoes suggests Io would be a hot celestial body, Io’s surface is always cold at about negative 230 degrees Fahrenheit. ![]()
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