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The Allure of Io

The Allure of Io
The Allure of Io A ring of fresh, bright red material encircles Pele, and almost continuously erupting volcano on Jupiter's moon Io. From this angle, Pele's plume is nearly invisible, but deposits indicate that it spews sulfurous materials out to more than 600 kilometers (400 miles) from its central vent. Another bright red deposit lies next to the volcano Marduk. Such deposits darken and disappear within years or decades, so the presence of bright red materials marks the sites of recent eruptions. This false-color infrared image is a composite made from data taken on Galileo's first orbit of Jupiter in June 1996 and its third orbit in November 1996. It covers an area almost 2,400 kilometers (1,500 miles) across. North is to the right of the picture. Paul Geissler and Alfred McEwen, Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona