The latest image of Jupiter's moon Io taken by NASA's Juno spacecraft at the end of 2023 | sorae satellite portal website

This is an image of Jupiter's moon Io taken using the JunoCam visible light camera aboard NASA's Juno probe. The surface of the sunlit hemisphere on the left is mottled by volcanic activity, and towering mountains and caldera-like terrain are clearly visible.

[▲ قمر المشتري آيو. تم التصوير في 30 ديسمبر 2023 بواسطة كاميرا الضوء المرئي “JunoCam” التابعة للإدارة الوطنية للملاحة الجوية والفضاء (NASA) ومسبار المشتري “Juno” (مصدر الصورة: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill)]

Io is one of Jupiter's four moons, called the “Galilean moons”, discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610. Tidal heating on Io due to interactions with Jupiter and other moons(※)Volcanic activity is known to occur using Jupiter as a heat source, and this activity has been observed not only by Jupiter's sensors but also by ground-based telescopes.

*…a phenomenon in which the interior of a celestial body is deformed and heated by the tidal force resulting from the gravity of another celestial body.

JunoCam images are gradually being made available to the public, and many citizen scientists are creating a variety of images. The first image is based on data obtained from a location about 2,840 km from Io on December 30, 2023, when Juno's 57th flyby of Jupiter (PJ57 (Perijove 57)) was conducted by citizen scientist Kevin M. Gill. Gill created and posted various images based on JunoCam data.

The Juno mission was originally scheduled to end in 2018, but has now been extended until September 2025. During the extended mission, observations have been made not only of Jupiter, but also of its satellites, including flyby explorations of Ganymede in June 2021 and Europe In September 2022.

According to NASA, during PJ57, Juno approached Io's surface at a distance of about 1,500 kilometers (planned) and acquired data including the image shown initially. Juno's flyby of Io is also scheduled to be explored in PJ 58 on February 3, 2024, and the spacecraft is scheduled to pass at an altitude of about 1,500 kilometers this time as well. Observing data from Juno, which has become the closest spacecraft to Io in the past 20 years, reveals things like Io's volcanic activity, a magma ocean thought to exist beneath Earth's crust, and the importance of Jupiter's tidal forces. .

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• Juno mission
• NASA NASA's Juno will take a closer look at Jupiter's volcanic moon Io on December 30

Text Editing/Syrian Studies Department