NASA’s Juno captures closest views of erupting volcanoes on Jupiter’s moon Io. Watch!

Erupting volcanoes are fascinating, and the countless volcano models children make in schools are a testament to that. But, if volcanoes on the Earth are so intriguing, how much more amazing would it be to be able to watch volcanoes erupting somewhere out in space?

This is now possible, all thanks to NASA’s Juno. The probe which last week conducted a planned flyby near Jupiter’s moon ‘Io’ has managed to capture fascinating visuals of the alien world teeming with volcanoes.

Taking to X, Jason Perry, a professional photographer for CaSSIS, HiRISE, and Io Volcano Observer shared an animated GIF showing 13 images from “Juno’s encounter with Io this week!”.

Have a look here:

These images, as per Mashable, have been processed to remove noise and distortion. This, the publication reports, was done by both professional and amateur image processors, some of whom work for NASA or related space research programmes. 

As per NASA, Jupiter’s rocky moon Io is the “most volcanically active world in the solar system, with hundreds of volcanoes, some erupting lava fountains dozens of miles (or kilometres) high”.

This, as per the US space agency, is due to a “tug-of-war between Jupiter’s powerful gravity and smaller but precisely timed pulls from two neighbouring moons that orbit farther from Jupiter – Europa and Ganymede.”

Because of the constant volcanism and intense radiation, Io, which is a bit larger than Earth’s moon, is an “unlikely destination for life”. It is also the third largest of Jupiter’s moons.

NASA’s Juno spacecraft has been probing “beneath the dense, forbidding clouds encircling the giant planet” since it arrived there in 2016. 

The spacecraft which is the first orbiter to peer so closely at Io has conducted around 60 flybys, of which the closest ones were made recently on Dec 30, 2023, and Feb 3, 2024.

(With inputs from agencies)