Io - Jupiter moon (6 mb)Io — Most Volcanically Active (Moon of Jupiter)
Description:
Io has often been described as looking like a pizza covered with melted cheese, tomato sauce and olives. The reason for this distinct surface is its vast number of active volcanoes. There are hundreds of volcanoes scattered over the surface of the moon, which is a bit larger than Earth’s Moon. Many of the volcanoes are still active and Voyager 1 and 2 were able to capture pictures of erupting volcanoes with plumes as tall as 190 miles.
Volcanoes of IO (1 mb)The path of Io around Jupiter is highly elliptical causing the tidal forces exerted on the moon to be immense. The effect of this is that the solid body of the moon can bulge out to almost 330 feet. This movement makes the moon incredibly hot, keeping the subsurface crust in a liquid state. This liquid sub-layer is one of the reasons for the high volcanic activity. One result of the volcanic activity is that there are very few crater marks as new lava is constantly filling in any craters that are created. Because of this, Io has a very young surface. There are two datasets available for Io. The first shows the surface of the moon. The second starts with the surface of Io, then highlights the locations of 26 major volcanoes on Io and finally shows the surface again.
Notable Features: Io
- Extraordinary number of volcanoes
- Lack of craters
- " Pizza—like" appearance
Notable Features: Io Volcanoes
- Volcanoes labeled with letters
Data Category
Major: Astronomy
Minor: Jupiter
Keywords:
Solar System, moon, volcano
| Data Set Name | Io (Jupiter moon) |
| Data Set Directory Name | io/original |
| Data Set Source | Voyager and Galileo Image details |
| Data Set Developer | Planetary Image Research Laboratory Laika's Celestia Add-Ons |
| Visualization Developer | Steve Albers, NOAA/GSD |
| Audio | No |
| Download | FTP |
| Data Set Name | Volcanoes of IO |
| Data Set Directory Name | io/volcanoes |
| Data Set Source | Magic Planet |
| Data Set Developer | Magic Planet |
| Visualization Developer | NASA Goddard Space Flight Center |
| Audio | No |
| Contact | NASA Goddard Space Flight Center |
| Download | FTP |