Juno Sees a Massive Hotspot of Volcanic Activity on Io

During its most recent flyby of Io, NASA's Juno spacecraft spotted a massive volcanic hotspot larger the Earth’s Lake Superior. It's just to the right of the south pole in this annotated image taken by the JIRAM infrared imager aboard NASA’s Juno on Dec. 27, 2024. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/ASI/INAF/JIRAM

New images from NASA’s Juno spacecraft make Io’s nature clear. It’s the most volcanically active world in the Solar System, with more than 400 active volcanoes. Juno has performed multiple flybys of Io, and images from its latest one show an enormous hotspot near the moon’s south pole.

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Comparing Two Proposed NASA Missions to Jupiter’s Moon Io

Juno captured this image of Io during Perijove 57. Data from Juno's JIRAM instrument is helping researchers understand how tidal heating shapes the moon's volcanic activity. Image Credit: NASA / SWRI / MSSS / Jason Perry © cc nc sa

Thanks to NASA’s Juno mission to the Jupiter system, we’re getting our best looks ever at the gas giant’s volcanic moon Io. Even as Juno provides our best views of the moon, it also deepens our existing questions. Only a dedicated mission to Io can answer those questions, and there are two proposed missions.

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