After exploring Jupiter’s moons Ganymede and Europa, NASA’s Juno probe is about to set its sights on the third of the enormous planet’s 4 essential moons — the mysterious volcanic moon Io.
Juno, which has been orbiting Jupiter since 2016, obtained instructions from NASA’s management groups to take photographs of Io on Thursday (Dec. 15). Io, about as large as Earth’s moon, will stay in Juno’s focus for the subsequent 12 months and a half because the probe performs a total of 9 flybys of the moon, two of which is able to take the probe inside 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) of its floor. For comparability, the Orion spacecraft flew previous Earth’s moon through the lately concluded Artemis 1 mission at a a lot nearer altitude of solely 80 miles (130 km).
The flybys, NASA mentioned in a statement (opens in new tab), will allow scientists “to carry out the primary high-resolution monitoring marketing campaign of the magma-encrusted moon, learning Io’s volcanoes and the way volcanic eruptions work together with Jupiter’s highly effective magnetosphere and aurora.”
Associated: NASA’s Juno spacecraft snaps its most detailed view of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa
Juno has taken a quick have a look at Io earlier than. In June 2022, the moon handed the moon at a distance of about 50,000 miles (80,000 km)
Io could be very completely different from the ice-encrusted moons Ganymede and Europa, that are each believed to cover oceans of water beneath their frozen surfaces, which, scientists assume, would possibly harbor primitive types of life.
Io’s floor, quite the opposite, is roofed in lakes of lava spouting from a whole bunch of volcanoes scattered on the moon’s floor. A number of the lava geysers erupt into heights of dozens of miles, or kilometers, according to NASA (opens in new tab). Though Io is unlikely to host life, in contrast to Ganymede and Europa, scientists are nonetheless desperate to get an in depth glimpse of this moon, which is probably the most tectonically energetic physique in the whole solar system.
The observations of Io are a part of Juno’s prolonged mission, which commenced in 2021.
“The staff is basically excited to have Juno’s prolonged mission embrace the examine of Jupiter’s moons,” Juno Principal Investigator Scott Bolton of the Southwest Analysis Institute in San Antonio mentioned within the assertion. “With every shut flyby, now we have been capable of receive a wealth of recent data.”
Though Juno’s sensors have been primarily designed to review the gaseous large, they’ve been delivering excellent outcomes additionally through the examination of the Jovian moons, Bolton added. The flyby of Ganymede in 2021 produced a flurry of papers on the moon’s floor, magnetic subject, inside and interplay with Jupiter’s magnetosphere. The September 2022 flyby of Europa generated the first-ever 3D observation of the icy world’s frozen shell.
Measurements from Juno’s Microwave Radiometer (MWR) instrument even allowed the staff to peer beneath Europa’s and Ganymede’s ice cowl for the primary time. The instrument was capable of measure the construction, purity and temperature of the moons’ water ice and their underlying oceans as much as the depths of 15 miles (24 km).
“After we mixed the MWR information with the floor photographs, we discovered the variations between these numerous terrain varieties should not simply pores and skin deep,” Bolton mentioned. “Younger, vibrant terrain seems colder than darkish terrain, with the coldest area sampled being the city-sized impression crater Tros [on Ganymede].”
Different missions have beforehand taken a have a look at Jupiter and its moons together with Galileo, Cassini and Voyager. The Jovian system will get a brand new customer sooner or later, the European Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) mission, which is scheduled to launch in April 2023. It’ll take eight years, nonetheless, earlier than Juice reaches its vacation spot.
Comply with Tereza Pultarova on Twitter @TerezaPultarova. Comply with us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
