Galileo's still producing discoveries: A magma ocean within Io!

Posted 2011/05/13 11:44 CDT | 0 comments

A fresh report was published online yesterday in Science Express on the discovery of a magma ocean beneath the surface of Io. Big news! This is a paper I've been looking forward to seeing for more than year and half.

Exposing Io's true colors

Posted 2010/08/20 05:15 CDT | 0 comments

Thanks to its active volcanic activity and sulfur-rich surface, Io is one of the most colorful worlds yet seen in the Solar System, save the Earth of course

Io mosaic from Galileo's I24 Flyby

Posted 2013/09/03 | 0 comments

This 12-frame mosaic from the Galileo Solid-State Imaging Experiment (SSI) covers much of the anti-Jovian hemisphere of Io at 1.45 km/pixel, with Jupiter in the background. Unlike the other mosaics from the I24 flyby, these images were acquired in full-frame mode. Images acquired in that mode did not suffer from the scrambling inflicted on the summation mode images during I24. This mosaic was designed as part of a stereo pair along with a similar mosaic acquired during C21 in July 1999; however, the relative blandness of much of the terrain outside Io's mountains and volcanoes, plus the unusual phase functions of many of its surface materials complicate the development of digital elevation models from these two data sets. The scrambled raw data for this image was unscrambled by a program developed at JPL using the LabVIEW software from National Instruments of Austin, TX.

Io against Jupiter

Posted 2013/09/03 | 0 comments

The Galileo Sold-State Imaging Experiment (SSI) acquired the images used in this color global mosaic of Io in front of Jupiter on orbit G2 on September 7, 1996. The camera's red, green, and violet filters were used for color. The mosaic is centered at 0.6°N, 174.6°W and has a resolution of 4.9 kilometers per pixel.

Color observation of Io's leading hemisphere

Posted 2013/09/03 | 0 comments

This mosaic of Io's leading hemisphere is comprised of images acquired by the Galileo Solid-State Imaging Experiment (SSI) during the C10 orbit on September 18 and 19, 1997. New plume deposits at a volcano west of Zal Patera and at Masubi were observed in these images. Color data was taken from Voyager RED and VIOLET filters.