Science.-The Juno spacecraft captures the best image of Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io – Publimetro México

Madrid, 6 (Europe Press)

In the foreground above are the volcanoes Lei-Kung Fluctus, Amaterasu Patera, Dazhbog Patera, and Surt & Vivasvant Patera. The smallest visible feature is about 35 kilometers in diameter, according to Andrew R. Brown, a mission scientist at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI).

Most of the dark spots that appear on the surface of Io are caused by volcanic eruptions. Among them is the East Gyro, a dark spot not seen when Io was last seen at this resolution, during New Horizons’ encounter with Jupiter in February 2007.

Girru Oriental was experiencing a major eruption at the time, but did not have time to produce a new lava flow before the end of the week-long standoff. This small flow field, measuring 3,200 square kilometers, may also have reactivated during the volcano’s October 2021 eruption, according to the spacecraft’s Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument.

Another visible surface change is at Chors Patera, which has undergone significant reddening since it was last observed by Galileo in October 2001. The reddish material on Io is indicative of short-chain sulfur and is often associated with high-temperature silicate volcanism. Other dark spots near the terminator, the boundary between the day and night sides, are the shadows of the high mountains. The dark spot in the center right in the upper right image may be caused by a 5,500-meter-high mountain.

The original JunoCAM observations were re-projected into a point perspective map projection and magnified 10 times to improve visibility of surface features. The original resolution of these images varied between 43km and 34km per pixel.