NASA’s Juno spacecraft to investigate Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io - Digital Trends

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NASA’s Juno spacecraft is celebrated for the beautiful images of Jupiter it regularly captures utilizing its JunoCam instrument, and its probe into Jupiter’s unusual atmosphere. But precocious the spacecraft has besides been investigating Jupiter’s moon, similar the icy Europa oregon the largest satellite successful our star system, Ganymede.

Now, Juno volition statesman an probe of the intriguing volcanic satellite Io. The spacecraft is acceptable to execute a bid of 9 flybys of Io opening connected December 15, coming wrong 930 miles of the moon’s surface.

NASA’s Juno ngo captured this infrared presumption of Jupiter’s volcanic satellite Io connected July 5, 2022, erstwhile the spacecraft was astir 50,000 miles (80,000 kilometers) away. This infrared representation was derived from information collected by the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrumentality aboard Juno. In this image, the brighter the colour the higher the somesthesia recorded by JIRAM.

This bid of flybys is portion of Juno’s extended mission to survey Jupiter’s moons. “The squad is truly excited to person Juno’s extended ngo see the survey of Jupiter’s moons. With each adjacent flyby, we person been capable to get a wealthiness of caller information,” said Juno Principal Investigator Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute, successful a statement. “Juno sensors are designed to survey Jupiter, but we’ve been thrilled astatine however good they tin execute treble work by observing Jupiter’s moons.”

Io is of peculiar involvement due to the fact that it is the astir volcanic spot successful the star system, and it besides has the highest density and strongest aboveground gravity of immoderate moon. Previous probe has shown it has implicit 400 progressive volcanoes, which are powered by tidal forces from Jupiter and its different moons creating friction that heats its interior. Previous observations from Juno captured the infrared representation above, showing blistery spots crossed the moon’s surface.

Juno volition survey the mode that Io’s volcanic enactment interacts with Jupiter’s magnetosphere, arsenic the satellite has a almighty magnetic tract surrounding it that interacts with its moons. Juno’s observations of the moons are besides paving the mode for aboriginal missions to survey these objects successful much depth, similar the European Space Agency’s JUpiter ICy satellite Explorer oregon JUICE, and NASA’s Europa Clipper ngo to Europa.