Jupiter's fiery moon Io resembles Earth of long ago
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High-resolution Galileo image of Prometheus, an active volcano on Io
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November 19, 1999
Web posted at: 5:38 p.m. EST (2238 GMT)
PASADENA, California (CNN) -- "It makes Dante's 'Inferno' seem like just another day in paradise," says Dr. Alfred McEwen of Jupiter's fiery moon Io, the most volcanic body in the universe.
Aided by detailed pictures gathered by NASA's Galileo spacecraft in October, the scientist describes a torrid landscape of gigantic lava flows and lava lakes and giant tumbling mountains twice as tall as anything on Earth at up to 52,000 feet (16 kilometers).
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In line with McEwen's vernacular, Earth itself must at one time must have also looked like Dante's "Inferno," although there was no one around millions of years ago to take note of it. The Galileo imaging team said the vast lava lakes, some as large as most eastern U.S. states, and fierce volcanic activity on Io suggest an environment similar to what Earth was like eons ago.
"Io is the next best thing to traveling back in time to Earth's earlier years," said Project Scientist Torrence Johnson. It gives us an opportunity to watch, in action, phenomena long dead in the rest of the solar system."
The Jupiter moon is roughly the size of Earth's moon.
McEwen, of the University of Arizona, Tucson is a member of the Galileo imaging team. At a Friday press conference, he and other team members unveiled findings from Galileo's October 11 flyby of the Jovian moon, when the spacecraft dipped to within 380 miles (611 kilometers) of Io's surface.
It will make an even closer pass -- an altitude of only 186 miles (300 kilometers) -- on November 25. That mission may be near the last for the sturdy craft, which has orbited Jupiter since December 7, 1995.
Galileo 'a bit past its warranty'
Scientists at Friday's briefing said the craft had taken something of a beating, largely from intense radiation from Jupiter's radiation belts, and one noted, "It's a bit past its warranty."
Loki, one of three volcanoes focused upon and the most powerful, not just on Io but in the entire solar system, consistently puts out more heat than all of Earth's active volcanoes, scientists said.
Equipment aboard Galileo has provided scientists with detailed temperature maps of Loki, whose caldera, or crater, is larger than the state of Maryland.
Observations of another of volcano, Prometheus, showed a puzzling pattern where a new lava flow and a plume erupt from a point 60 miles (100 kilometers) from where it was observed by NASA's voyager spacecraft in 1979.
New Galileo data carify where lava is erupting, advancing and producing plumes. The most unexpected result, the panel said, is that the 50 mile (75 kilometers) tall plume erupts from under a lava flow far from the main volcano.
The plume is fed by vaporized sulfur dioxide-rich snow under the lava flow, the scientists said.
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RELATED SITES:
Galileo Project Home
NASA Io Flyby page
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
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