Mystery of the Solar System’s most volcanic body solved

Mystery of the Solar System’s most volcanic body solved

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Mystery of the Solar System’s most volcanic body solved




Mystery of the Solar System's most volcanic body solved



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NASA’s Juno mission, Jupitersatellite of IoIt illuminated the secret behind the Solar System’s most volcanic body. According to new research, Io’s volcanic activity is fueled by separate magma chambers beneath each volcano, rather than a single magma ocean. This discovery provides insight into the origins of Io’s volcanic structure. solves a 44-year-old mystery about.

The research results, published in the journal Nature, were shared with the public at a press conference held at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union.

44 year old mystery solved

Io, which has almost the same size as the Earth’s moon, is approximately It has 400 active volcanoes. Constantly erupting lava and smoke clouds contribute to the formation of characteristic layers covering the surface of the satellite.

Io’s volcanic activities were first noticed by Linda Morabito in 1979, in images taken by NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft. However, the source of these eruptions remained a mystery for many years. However, this mystery was finally solved with the Juno spacecraft, which was launched in 2011 and reached Jupiter in 2016.

The Juno spacecraft came within just 1,500 kilometers of Io’s surface in December 2023 and February 2024, precisely measuring Io’s gravity through NASA’s Deep Space Network. These measurements indicate Io’s tidal heating, or tidal stretch He revealed in detail the effects of a phenomenon called.

Volcanoes are formed from local magma




Mystery of the Solar System's most volcanic body solved



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Because of Io’s elliptical orbit, Jupiter’s strong gravitational effects cause the moon to constantly compress and expand. This causes excessive internal friction and heating, known as tidal flexing. However, the data obtained show that there is no information below the surface of Io. There is no global magma oceanshowed that volcanoes are fed by localized magma chambers.

Io orbits extremely close to Jupiter, one of the giant planets of our system, and its elliptical orbit rotates it around the gas giant every 42.5 hours. As the distance changes, Jupiter’s gravitational force also changes, causing the satellite to be constantly crushed and contracted. This constant stretching creates tremendous energy that literally melts Io’s interior.

But new research reveals that this immense energy does not create a global magma ocean beneath Io’s surface. These findings not only make us rethink what we know about Io’s interior, but they also impact our understanding of the formation and evolution of exoplanets, as well as other celestial bodies such as the moons of Saturn’s Enceladus and Jupiter’s Europa.