11/7/2023 0 Comments Io moon surface characteristics![]() Like an acrobat, IVO would hang far from Jupiter, timing its plunges toward Io to reach the best locations – and at the precise moments - to both collect the clearest observations of Io’s magnetic and gravity fields, and measure the “wobble” Jupiter imposes on its orbit, another indicator of its internal structure.ĭipping as close as 120 miles (200 kilometers) above the moon, IVO would image about 90% of Io’s colorful surface and volcanism at down to about 900 feet (300 meters) per pixel, and smaller areas down to 3 m/pixel, and capture movies of the erupting lava and plumes on each flyby. IVO would also combine geophysical measurements and new topographic maps to understand the thickness and movement of Io’s cold, rocky outer layer, and provide insights into how the Earth, Moon and other rocky planets worked shortly after their own formation, when they were cooling magma-ocean worlds. ![]() As Jupiter’s magnetic field sweeps over the moon, IVO would detect the distortion in the magnetic field produced by currents generated inside the electrically conductive magma, picking up a different reading than, say, if Io’s insides were largely solid. So IVO would measure the gravity and magnetic fields around Io to sense what’s happening inside.įor instance, one tantalizing possibility is that Io has a global magma ocean hiding under its mostly cold, rocky surface. “And key to that is understanding where the heat is being generated inside Io.”ĭepending on the distribution of solid and molten rock within the moon, tidal heating could be spread throughout its interior or concentrated closer to its surface. “We want to follow the heat,” said Laszlo Kestay, IVO deputy principal investigator from the U.S. U003cstrongu003eu003cemu003eNASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Southwest Research Instituteu003c/emu003eu003c/strongu003eĪs principal investigator, McEwen leads the team crafting IVO, which is under consideration for NASA’s Discovery Program.īeing developed by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, the IVO spacecraft would make at least 10 close flybys of Io over four years, using a suite of specialized instruments to peer beneath Io’s bright, sulfur-covered surface, capture images and video of its extreme volcanism, and ultimately track Io’s heat energy from the inside out. “It really is the best place in the solar system to understand tidal heating.” ![]() Learning exactly how this furnace functions within Io, McEwen said, will in turn help us understand how worlds evolve. “Major questions remain about where and how tidal heat is produced inside a planet or moon, how that heat escapes to the surface, and what effect this process has on planetary worlds across the cosmos,” he said.īut Io, with its spectacular volcanoes and extreme tidal activity, could address those questions. But we’re still profoundly ignorant about how they actually work, said Alfred McEwen, a planetary geologist and regents’ professor at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona. Scientists know these tidal forces generate extreme heat inside Io - resulting in 20 times more heat flow than Earth – and, in general, are an important planetary process across the universe. Under the colossal pull of Jupiter’s gravity and the passing orbital tugs of sibling moons Europa and Ganymede, Io is subject to punishing tides that stretch and squeeze the moon as it moves along its elliptical path. But today, in our solar system, only Io hosts this kind of hyperactivity. Wind the clock back a few billion years, and this could have been the surface of any young rocky planet.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |