NASA publishes photos of the most volcanic world in our solar system: it’s near Jupiter

Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system and has 70 moons revolving around it.

Our solar system is still holds many unknowns And NASA is trying to solve them. Last weekend the US space agency published new images of Jupiter’s icy moon. The photos were taken by the Juno spacecraft about 930 miles from the surface of this celestial body. The most incredible thing is that its ancient volcanic activity has been observed,

Thanks to new technologies available in space exploration, NASA is succeeding in discovering many unknown celestial bodies. And the best part is that these objects float in space that we already knew about Now they can be seen completely different and in a much better way!

Io is a moon with incredible volcanic activity

On December 30, NASA published images of Io, Jupiter’s volcanoes and icy moons, This natural satellite has been known for decades, although now experts have been able to publish very interesting photos of it. The first thing that has been identified is that its surface is littered with the remains of intense volcanic activity.

The surface of Jupiter’s moon Io. The image shows the ancient volcanic activity of this natural satellite. Source: NASA

Comparison with Earth can help us get an idea of ​​the differences. According to a recent article by Popsy, our planet suffers about 50 eruptions per year. Instead, Io may have up to 100 times more volcanic activity. Here is one reason why this is so in the gravitational attraction that Jupiter exerts on the moon,

NASA has revealed that this was the closest flyby ever conducted on Io. Although there was already another similarity with the Galileo spacecraft in 2001, The survey conducted on December 30, 2023 provided more data, This is not surprising, since the difference is over two decades of technological improvement. On this occasion the mission has monitored the moon’s volcanic activity from a distance of approximately 6,830 miles.

Scott Bolton NASA: ‘Juno orbiting Jupiter’s north pole is unlike anything we’ve seen or imagined.’ pic.twitter.com/atvCEZkLTo

– Luis Alberto Olivero (@477lao) 3 September 2016

Scott Bolton, one of Principal Investigator of Juno MissionAs this exploration is called, said that: “We are looking at how often they erupt, how bright and hot they get, how the shape of lava flows changes, and how Io’s activity affects the flow of charged particles. It is related to Jupiter’s magnetosphere.

At the moment Io still has many mysteries for humans, Current research suggests that this moon may have magma oceans beneath its surface. We will have to wait for new studies to confirm these theories. The Juno mission shows us how far humans are coming in their knowledge of the universe around them.