A Solar System of Fire and Ice


The Galileo spacecraft caught a volcano erupting on Jupiter's moon Io in 1997.
"Rosaly Lopes spent five years carefully inspecting a churning landscape where molten rock spilled forth like the arced jets of a water fountain. Using data from an orbiting probe, she picked out eruptions across the fiery surface, eventually spotting 71 active volcanoes that no one had ever detected before. ... None of the volcanoes were on Earth, though. They were several hundred million miles away, on a moon of Jupiter called Io. Today, Io is known as the most volcanically active place in the solar system. Other volcanic spots are scattered across our neighboring planets and moons, too, and probably countless more in other solar systems across the universe. Recently, NASA announced it would fund proposals for four new robotic missions, all headed for a close look at these kinds of worlds—Io, Venus, and Triton, a moon of Neptune. ..."
The Atlantic

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