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PIA09360: A "Plumefall" on Io
New Horizons took this image of Jupiter's volcanic moon Io with its Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) at 15:15 Universal Time on February 28, 2007, nearly 10 hours after the spacecraft's closest approach to Jupiter.
 Target Name:  Io
 Is a satellite of:  Jupiter
 Mission:  New Horizons 
 Spacecraft:  New Horizons
 Instrument:  LORRI 
 Product Size:  399 x 397 pixels (w x h) 
 Produced By:  Johns Hopkins University/APL 
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA09360.tif (158.8 kB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA09360.jpg (12.02 kB)  

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

New Horizons took this image of Jupiter's volcanic moon Io with its Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) at 15:15 Universal Time on February 28, 2007, nearly 10 hours after the spacecraft's closest approach to Jupiter. The image is centered at Io coordinates 5 degrees south, 92 degrees west, and the spacecraft was 2.4 million kilometers (1.5 million miles) from Io. Io's diameter is 3,640 kilometers (2,262 miles).

Io's dayside was deliberately overexposed in this image to bring out details on the nightside and in any volcanic plumes that might be present. Io cooperated by producing an enormous plume, 330 kilometers (200 miles) high, from the volcano Tvashtar. Near Io's north pole, Tvashtar was active throughout New Horizons' Jupiter encounter.

In this image, volcanic debris from the plume, illuminated by the setting sun, rains down onto Io's nightside. Hot, glowing lava at the source of the plume is the bright point of light on the sunlit side of the terminator (the line separating day and night). Elsewhere along the terminator, mountains catch the setting sun. The nightside of Io is lit up by light reflected from Jupiter.

Image Credit:
NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

Image Addition Date:
2007-05-01