NASA photo of Jupiter’s moon Io shows lava lakes glowing bright red

NASA has released a stunning photo of Jupiter’s moon Io, showing fiery lava lakes glowing brightly on its surface.

The image, taken in July but released by NASA this week, was captured by the Juno spacecraft’s Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) imager.

It shows several of Io’s volcanoes as bright lights, some erupting lava fountains tens of kilometers high.

NASA said Juno captured another set of images of Io (pronounced “eye-oh”) on Thursday (December 15) that will be released soon.

The volcano-strewn surface of Jupiter’s moon Io was imaged in infrared by the Juno spacecraft’s Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) imager as it flew by at a distance of about 50,000 miles on July 5, 2022. Lighter spots indicate higher temperatures

Juno reached Jupiter in 2016 after a five-year journey and will continue to fly past the planet and its moons through 2025.

The spacecraft is now in the second year of its extended mission to study Jupiter’s interior.

It was planned to complete in February 2018 after completing 37 orbits of Jupiter, but has been tasked with completing another 42 orbits by 2025.

“The team is really excited that Juno’s expanded mission includes studying Jupiter’s moons,” said Juno’s principal investigator Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio.

“Juno sensors were designed to study Jupiter, but we were amazed at how well they could do double duty by observing Jupiter’s moons.”

The image of Io’s volcano-strewn surface was acquired by JIRAM in infrared as Juno flew by on July 5, 2022 at a distance of about 50,000 miles (80,000 km).

The brightest points in the image – which look like a row of Christmas lights – indicate the highest temperatures.

Io is described by NASA as “the most volcanic place in the solar system,” with hundreds of volcanoes spewing lava fountains.

The moon even has lakes of molten silicate lava — molten mixtures dominated by oxygen and silicon — on its surface.

In the new image, Io appears red due to the infrared light captured by JIRAM, but the best approximation of what it would look like to the human eye shows a predominantly yellowish sphere punctuated by green and black spots.

Approximately true color image of Io from the Galileo spacecraft. The dark spot left of center is the erupting volcano Prometheus. Most of Io’s surface is pastel colors punctuated by black, brown, green, orange, and red entities near the active volcanic centers. The whitish plains on either side are covered in volcanically deposited sulfur dioxide frost, while the yellower regions contain higher levels of sulfur

Io will remain an object of Juno team attention for the next year and a half.

Juno’s reconnaissance on December 15 marked the first of nine flybys — two of them from just 1,500 kilometers away.

NASA says, “Juno scientists will use these flybys to conduct the first high-resolution surveillance campaign on the magma-encrusted moon to study Io’s volcanoes and how volcanic eruptions interact with Jupiter’s powerful magnetosphere and aurora.”

Juno, a spinning, solar-powered spacecraft, reached Jupiter on July 4, 2016 after launching from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on August 5, 2011.

Juno is shown here in an artist’s rendering as she approaches Jupiter. Juno has been orbiting Jupiter and its moon for five years

In 2016, the Juno spacecraft reached Jupiter after a journey of almost five years. Launched on August 5, 2011 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Juno’s primary mission is to understand the origin and evolution of Jupiter (artist’s impression)

Juno has three huge blades that extend about 20 meters from its cylindrical, six-sided body.

It performed a close flyby of Ganymede in June 2021 and Europa in September of that year.

Images of the Ganymede flyby were captured as it flew within 645 miles (1,038 kilometers) of the icy moon.

The image provided by NASA and taken in June 2021 by the Juno spacecraft shows the dark side of the moon Ganymede

This second image from NASA shows the dark side of Jupiter’s moon Ganymede, captured by the Juno spacecraft as it flew by

The last time a spacecraft came this close to Ganymede was in May 2000, when NASA’s Galileo spacecraft flew by.

Likewise, Juno gave us the closest view of Europa that any spacecraft has provided in more than 20 years, when Galileo came within 218 miles (351 km) of the surface in January 2000.

Juno captured Europa’s ice-encrusted surface in exceptional detail as it came within 352 km of its surface on September 29.

Up close and personal: NASA’s Juno spacecraft takes its first photos of Jupiter’s moon Europa, capturing the icy surface in exceptional detail

The images are the closest view of Europa provided by a spacecraft in more than 20 years when the US Space Agency’s Galileo came within 218 miles (351 km) of the surface in January 2000

An interactive NASA tool provides real-time updates of Juno’s location relative to Jupiter and its moons.

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The Juno probe reached Jupiter in 2016 after a five-year journey of 1.8 billion miles from Earth

The Juno probe reached Jupiter on July 4, 2016 after a five-year journey of 1.8 billion miles (2.8 billion km) from Earth.

After a successful braking maneuver, it entered a long polar orbit, flying within 5,000 km (3,100 miles) of the planet’s swirling cloud cover.

The probe came within just 4,200 km (2,600 miles) of the planet’s clouds every two weeks — too close to provide global coverage in a single image.

No previous spacecraft has orbited so close to Jupiter, although two more have been sent through its atmosphere to destroy them.

To complete his perilous mission, Juno survived a circuit-damaging radiation storm created by Jupiter’s intense magnetic field.

The vortex of high-energy particles traveling at nearly the speed of light is the harshest radiation environment in the solar system.

To cope with the conditions, the spacecraft was protected with special radiation-resistant wiring and sensor shielding.

Its all-important “brain” – the spacecraft’s flight computer – was housed in an armored titanium vault and weighed nearly 400 pounds (172 kg).

The ship is scheduled to study the composition of the planet’s atmosphere by 2025.