Lava lakes on Jupiter’s hottest moon Io are revealing surprising secrets in high-resolution images taken by NASA’s Juno spacecraft. This instrumentJiram, funded by the Italian Space Agency, has allowed us to observe how magma rises and falls in the enormous lava lakes that cover the surface of Io.
Images captured by Jiram during two close flybys, in May and October 2023, revealed Bright rings in the infrared at numerous hotspots, such as calderas, volcanoes, and lava flows. According to Alessandro Mura, Juno co-investigator at the National Institute for Astrophysics in Rome, “the high spatial resolution of Jiram’s infrared images, combined with Juno’s favorable position during the flybys, revealed that the entire surface of Io is covered by lava lakes contained in caldera-like structures.”
Io’s Lava Lakes: Unprecedented Volcanism
The pictures show a extremely thin lava circle at the boundary between the central crust and the lake walls, suggesting magma recycling. This balance between magma erupted into lava lakes and magma reinjected into the subsurface system is a fascinating phenomenon that is expanding our understanding of volcanism on Io. Mura adds, “We now have an idea of what type of volcanism is most common on Io: huge lava lakes where magma rises and falls.”
Future implications
This data provides new information about Io’s abundant lava reserves and the processes that occur beneath its surface. The caldera walls, probably hundreds of meters high, explain why magma is not generally observed flowing out of the paterae and moving across the moon’s surface.
What do you think about these new discoveries about Io? Leave a comment below!
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