Famous for its Great Red Spot, Jupiter is a gas giant with some of the most fascinating weather in the solar system.
Researchers behind NASA’s mission investigating Jupiter believe they have determined the mechanisms behind the intense volcanic activity on one of the planet’s nearly one hundred moons.
The findings, recently published in the journal Nature, suggest that the volcanoes on the moon Io are fed by individual magma chambers rather than a single giant mass of magma.
Io is home to around an estimated 400 volcanoes, which occasionally send plumes of lava and gas into space.
The discovery of volcanic activity on Io dates back to 1979 when the Voyager 1 spacecraft captured images of a giant volcanic plume.
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Artist rendering of Jupiter’s fiery moon Io
(NASA)
“Since [Linda] Morabito’s discovery, planetary scientists have wondered how the volcanoes were fed from the lava underneath the surface,” Scott Bolton, a Juno principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, said in a statement. “Was there a shallow ocean of white-hot magma fueling the volcanoes, or was their source more localized? We knew data from Juno’s two very close flybys could give us some insights on how this tortured moon actually worked.”
NASA says in late 2023 and early 2024 the Juno spacecraft made two close flybys of Io, coming within 1,000 of the moon’s surface, which helped to collect data on its structure.
“During the close approaches, Juno communicated with NASA’s Deep Space Network, acquiring high-precision, dual-frequency Doppler data, which was used to measure Io’s gravity by tracking how it affected the spacecraft’s acceleration. What the mission learned about the moon’s gravity from those flybys led to the new paper by revealing more details about the effects of a phenomenon called tidal flexing,” the space agency said.
Io’s close distance to the fifth planet is said to create a significant gravitational pull, which in turn leads to internal friction and heat inside the moon.
“This constant squeezing creates a huge amount of energy, which melts parts of Io’s interior,” Bolton said in a statement. “If Io had a large, global ocean of magma, we would expect to see a much bigger effect from the squeezing. By studying the gravity of Io with Juno, we can tell if there’s a hidden magma ocean under the surface.”
NASA’s Juno Mission sheds light on volcanic activity on Jupiter’s moon
(NASA)
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The Juno program is expected to continue at least through 2025 or until the spacecraft stops feeding data.
The spacecraft has been in the planet’s orbit since 2016 and is expected to make its next closest approach on Dec. 27, when Juno will be about 2,175 miles above the surface of Jupiter.