Peering beneath the crust of our solar system's most volcanic world
In short: For decades, we only saw the surface of Jupiter's moon Io—a landscape of towering mountains and active lava. Now, NASA's Juno spacecraft is looking deeper. By probing several feet underground, scientists are finally seeing how heat moves through a rocky crust, revealing secrets about the moon's molten interior.
Launched on August 5, 2011, NASA's Juno spacecraft traveled 2.8 billion kilometers to reach Jupiter. While its primary mission is to probe the giant planet, recent flybys of Io—the solar system's most volcanically active world—have yielded groundbreaking data. In late 2023 and early 2024, Juno performed some of its closest approaches to Io in over 20 years, coming within approximately 930 miles of the surface on December 30, 2023.
The breakthrough came from using a Microwave Radiometer (MWR) instrument. Originally designed to peer through Jupiter's thick clouds, it was turned toward Io to probe between six and 20 feet beneath its rocky surface. This allowed scientists to move beyond mere infrared observations of surface temperatures. The data revealed that temperatures rise by more than 40 degrees Fahrenheit just a few feet down—a heat signature far too intense to be caused by sunlight alone.
This subsurface mapping identifies localized hot spots and provides a clearer picture of how Io transports internal heat. Unlike Earth, where volcanism is largely driven by radioactive decay, Io's activity is fueled by the immense gravity of Jupiter, which continuously stretches and squeezes the moon as it orbits. Scientists believe this heat may be rising from a molten interior through a conductive crust or from pockets of cooling lava trapped just below the surface.
The discovery has significant implications for terrestrial geology. Principal investigator Scott Bolton notes that using MWR-type instruments near volcanoes on Earth could reveal similar subsurface temperature gradients, offering new insights into how our own planet's volcanoes function.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: New GroundBreaking Discoveries And Images From Jupiter and Its Moon Io
- Also: What lurks beneath the volcanoes of Jupiter's moon Io? NASA's Juno probe just took a peek | Space
- Also: NASA Science — For Your Processing Pleasure: The Sharpest Pictures of Jupiter’s Volcanic Moon Io in a Generation - NASA Science
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