![]() Data from the Pioneers also revealed an intense belt of radiation near Io and suggested the presence of an atmosphere. The flybys of the two Pioneer probes, Pioneer 10 and 11 in 19, provided the first accurate measurement of Io's mass and size. In the 1960s the moon's effect on Jupiter's magnetic field was discovered. ![]() The advent of uncrewed spaceflight in the 1950s and 1960s provided an opportunity to observe Io up-close. Overview of the exploration of Io, Jupiter's innermost Galilean and third-largest moon Painting illustrating a flyby of Io by the Galileo spacecraft Improved telescope technology in the late 19th and 20th centuries allowed astronomers to resolve large-scale surface features on Io as well as to estimate its diameter and mass. This resonance was later found to have a profound effect on the geologies of these moons. Based on ephemerides produced by astronomer Giovanni Cassini and others, Pierre-Simon Laplace created a mathematical theory to explain the resonant orbits of three of Jupiter's moons, Io, Europa, and Ganymede. During the 17th century, observations of Io and the other Galilean satellites helped with the measurement of longitude by map makers and surveyors, with validation of Kepler's Third Law of planetary motion, and with measurement of the speed of light. Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei was the first to record an observation of Io on January 8, 1610, though Simon Marius may have also observed Io at around the same time. Until then, the mystery of what dwells in Io’s dark depths may have to remain in purgatory.The exploration of Io, Jupiter's innermost Galilean and third-largest moon, began with its discovery in 1610 and continues today with Earth-based observations and visits by spacecraft to the Jupiter system. That would fulfill the energy-shedding role of a magma ocean.įuture measurements collected by NASA’s ongoing Juno mission as well two future spacecraft - NASA’s Europa Clipper and the European Space Agency’s JUICE - may provide the data needed to determine whether either, or some combination, of the hypotheses is correct, Stevenson and Howell said ( SN: 12/15/22). Howell and colleagues calculate that a metal core that’s about as rigid as solid ice and a rocky mantle as viscous as Earth’s could fully dispense the immense quantities of heat that Io is estimated to emit. Previous research has suggested that Io has a core rich in metals. Instead, the truth may lie within Io’s heart, where a core made of solid metal may lurk, Howell reported December 15 at the meeting. ![]() “But I wouldn’t say there’s consensus on how to interpret that data.” “A lot of information is consistent with a large, global conductive layer that could be a magma ocean,” Howell says. “The final conclusion is Io has a magma ocean.”īut there are other possibilities. The molten rock and solid rock would split into distinct layers, with the molten rock coalescing into a subsurface sea, Stevenson said. JPL-Caltech/NASA, SwRI, ASI, INAF, JIRAMīut the researchers couldn’t tell whether that layer would consist of a continuous sea of magma or many little pockets of molten rock dispersed throughout solid rock, resembling a soggy sponge.īuilding off that previous work, Stevenson and Caltech geophysicist Yoshinori Miyazaki calculated that a mixed layer of magma and solid rock beneath Io’s crust would be fundamentally unstable under the amount of heating they predict occurs inside the moon. Hot spots speckle the surface of the volcanic moon Io in this infrared image captured by NASA’s Juno spacecraft on July 5, 2022, when the spacecraft was about 80,000 kilometers from the moon.
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