NASA showed close-up lava flows on Io, Jupiter's moon
Miscellaneous / / October 18, 2023
NASA's Juno spacecraft is gradually approaching Jupiter's moon Io, the most volcanically active world in the solar system. He recently flew just 11,700 kilometers above its surface, taking close-up photographs of it.
Probe captured distant object on October 15, and the very next day it transmitted images to Earth. Agency specialists and amateur astronomers corrected them a little - removed noise, distortion, and so on.
These are the clearest images of Io ever taken. On one of them you can even see lava flows - they look like giant brown-green ponds.
In the near future, Juno will continue to approach the satellite. It will next peak in December and then move even closer in January 2024.
Io is constantly erupting due to the powerful gravity of nearby objects. On the one hand, it is attracted by the largest planet in the solar system, on the other - by Jupiter’s larger satellites - Europa and Ganymede. As a result, it constantly stretches and contracts, which awakens volcanoes on its surface.
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