most volcanically active world in the solar system
(FOX NEWS) – NASA’s Juno spacecraft’s mission to Jupiter has set its sights on the moon Io.
The agency said in a release, sharing a striking image of the moon’s volcano-laced surface captured in the infrared by the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper this summer, that it was scheduled to image the Jovian moon on Thursday.
The Dec. 15 flyby was the first of nine, with two of them just 930 miles away.
The July 5 photo was captured as the spacecraft flew by at a distance of about 50,000 miles, with brighter spots indicating where temperatures were higher.
“The team is really excited to have Juno’s extended mission include the study of Jupiter’s moons. With each close flyby, we have been able to obtain a wealth of new information,” Juno Principal Investigator Scott Bolton, of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, said in a statement. “Juno sensors are designed to study Jupiter, but we’ve been thrilled at how well they can perform double duty by observing Jupiter’s moons.”
Io, the most volcanically active world in the solar system, will remain an object of the Juno team’s attention for the next year and a half.
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