NASA's Juno spacecraft is giving scientists their first good look at Io's polar regions. The case for a magma ocean is getting stronger.
NASA’s Galileo spacecraft captured this image of a volcanic eruption on Io in 1997. Image Credit:NASA, NASA-JPL, DLR
NASA’s Juno mission has shifted its focus from Jupiter to the gas giant’s moons, beginning with the volcanic Io. It’s flybys are getting increasingly closer to the unique moon, and the decreasing distance is giving the spacecraft a better and better look. It’s identified 266 active volcanoes, and together, they’re evidence of a vast global ocean of magma according to new research.
Since then, Juno has closed the distance even more, and its latest pass brought it to within 12,000 km But it’s not just the proximity that is driving more discoveries. Juno follows a polar orbit, while previous observations of Io have been mostly confined to an equatorial plane. Why does that matter?
This figure from the research shows four images of Io from JIRAM. Two are from perijove 10 and show the south polar region at a resolution of 112 km/pixel The other two are from perijove 43 and show the north polar region at a resolution of 21 km/pixel. Image b and d are JIRAM data overlain on Galileo/Voyager images. This new data from Io’s poles is critical to understanding the moon’s nature. Image Credit: Davies et al. 2023.
From “Io’s polar volcanic thermal emission indicative of magma ocean and shallow tidal heating models” by Davies et al. 2023
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