The Biggest Volcano on Jupiter's Moon Io Is Super Active

This image shows Loki Patera, spewing in the background.Image courtesy of NASA/JPL/USGS).




Joel Kontinen

Jupiter's moon Io should not have volcanos - but it does. However, the solar system's 14-billion years cannot maintain them.

If Io were really as old as some astronomers assume, it should be a dead moon.

But it isn’t.

Io’s volcanoes are active and surprisingly violent, suggesting that they could not have been spouting lava for millions of years.

Research on the volcanoes was published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters on August 8th.



Source:

Bartels, Meghan 2019. The Biggest Volcano on Jupiter's Moon Io Is Super Active. But Does It Run Like Clockwork? Space.com (13.8.).