Astronomy Picture of the Day -- Io's Surface: Under Construction

NASA ^ | August 04, 2013 | (see photo credit)

[SunkenCiv]

Explanation: Like the downtown area of your favorite city and any self-respecting web site ... Io's surface is constantly under construction. This moon of Jupiter holds the distinction of being the Solar System's most volcanically active body -- its bizarre looking surface continuously formed and reformed by lava flows. Generated using 1996 data from NASA's Galileo spacecraft, this high resolution composite image is centered on the side of Io that always faces away from Jupiter. It has been enhanced to emphasize Io's surface brightness and color variations, revealing features as small as 1.5 miles across. The notable absence of impact craters suggests that the entire surface is covered with new volcanic deposits much more rapidly than craters are created. What drives this volcanic powerhouse? A likely energy source is the changing gravitational tides caused by Jupiter and the other Galilean moons as Io orbits the massive gas giant planet. Heating Io's interior, the pumping tides would generate the sulfurous volcanic activity.

[SunkenCiv]

[Credit: Galileo Project, JPL, NASA]

[SunkenCiv]

Looks unhealthy and creepy. :'o

The Big One

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[Jonty30]

I think I see Obama’s birth certificate.

[elephantlips]

Close up of a zit.

[Salamander]

All these worlds are yours except Europa ping.

[Salamander]

Moldy cheese.

[elephant lips? LMAO]

[dr_lew]

Jupiter is the elephant in the living room. In fact, this is a previous APOD:

[fieldmarshaldj]

It’s amazing those moons don’t get sucked into Jupiter just by sheer force of gravity.

[The Cajun]

Them Ioians must be tough bunch :)

[montag813]

What a miracle all our lives are. Grab those you love and don’t let go. Love them. Make your every moment count.

[dr_lew]

Something I just learned, and it’s right on Wikipedia, is that all this tidal heating of Io and Europa is due to the stable interlocked orbits of Io, Europa, and Ganymede, with periods in the ratio 1:2:4 . ( Callisto is far enough away not to be locked in, and is effectively a “loner” . )

Any one of these moons, alone, would settle into a fixed circular orbit without any variable tidal forces, but all together they constantly tug each other back and forth in a stable but dissipative pattern.

Well, it makes sense to me!

[SunkenCiv]

Never, ever play pull my finger with someone from Io.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Wikipedia is amazing for what you learn. I learned there that the singer formerly known as Terence Trent D’Arby breaks wind uncontrollably at the sight of monkeys. Good thing Io doesn’t look like a monkey.

[SunkenCiv]

twice, even. :’)

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap001226.html
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap021207.html

[jmacusa]

They will someday. The two moons of Mars, Phobos and Demos will crash into the planet eventually as well.

[SunkenCiv]

Gotcha! Jupiter Turned Comet into a Moon
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2339448/posts

Location Made Twin Moons Different [Ganymede, Callisto]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2438961/posts

Probe spies moon’s volcanic plume (Jupiter’s moon, Io)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1793158/posts

and wth:

Saturn’s sixtieth moon discovered
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1869432/posts

[jmacusa]

Io looks like an orange that got stuck behind the refrigerator for a couple of weeks.

[SunkenCiv]

No, they won’t. Two of Jupiter’s prograde moons will:

http://www.seasky.org/solar-system/jupiter-moons.html

The retrograde moons and numerous retrograde moonlets may eventually crash into Jupiter, or they may be ejected from the system.

Phobos will eventually crash into Mars, Deimos probably won’t. They must have been captured by Mars, but no one has come up with the math to satisfy everyone else working on the problem.

http://nineplanets.org/phobos.html

http://nineplanets.org/deimos.html

[SunkenCiv]

You’re juice saying that.

[jmacusa]

Neptunes moon Triton is a ‘’captured moon’’ and rotates opposite to it's host, that is counter-clockwise. Which tells me, an amateur astronomer that Triton must have come from farther out in our solar system, maybe at the edge of it. And on a down note our galaxy, the Milky Way is on a collision course with the Andromeda Galaxy. As we speak we're racing towards each other at nearly 4000,000 mph. But as we're some two million, three hundred thousand light years apart, it'll be a while.