Catalog Page for PIA26522

Find a Node - Use these links to navigate to any of the 8 publicly accessible PDS Nodes.

This bar indicates that you are within the PDS enterprise which includes 6 science discipline nodes and 2 support nodes which are overseen by the Project Management Office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). Each node is led by an expert in the subject discipline, supported by an advisory group of other practitioners of that discipline, and subject to selection and approval under a regular NASA Research Announcement.

PIA26522: NASA's Juno Sees Glowing Lava on Io

The Stellar Reference Unit (SRU) on NASA's Juno spacecraft observed an unprecedented glow from active lava at the base of a mountain on Io.

Target Name:	Io
Is a satellite of:	Jupiter
Mission:	Juno
Spacecraft:	Juno
Instrument:	Stellar Reference Unit (SRU)
Product Size:	2256 x 1158 pixels (w x h)
Produced By:	USRA
Full-Res TIFF:	PIA26522.tif (4.036 MB)
Full-Res JPEG:	PIA26522.jpg (186.7 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:

While imaging Io's night side under illumination from Jupiter-shine on Dec. 30, 2023, the Stellar Reference Unit (SRU) on NASA's Juno spacecraft observed an unprecedented glow from active lava at the base of a mountain on Io (red arrow, right panel). The thermal emission signature was located at the base of the western flank of South Zal Mons. Sunlit imagery of the region by captured by NASA's Galileo mission circa 1999 (at left) shows a vertical mountain fracture running from the top of the mountain to the location of the SRU-observed "glow" (red arrow, left panel). One hypothesis is that an extension of the mountain fracture created a fissure vent that allows lava to escape to the surface at this location.

More information about Juno is at https://www.nasa.gov/juno and https://missionjuno.swri.edu.

Image Credit:

NASA/Caltech-JPL/SwRI/LPI/USRA

Image Addition Date:

2024-12-12