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A NASA spacecraft orbiting Jupiter has just witnessed some of the most extreme volcanic eruptions ever seen in the solar system, coming from a giant underground magma chamber on the "tormented" Jovian moon Io. The energy pouring from this record-breaking hot spot far exceeds the amount of power we are producing on Earth, researchers say. Io is Jupiter's third-largest moon, spanning roughly 2,300 miles (3,700 kilometers) across, which makes it slightly bigger than Earth's moon. It orbits Jupiter at a distance of around 262,000 miles (422,000 km) — also similar to how far away the moon orbits Earth — but...

A US radio telescope has captured images of an enormous lava lake on the surface of Io, one of the moons orbiting the planet Jupiter, the Puerto Rico Astronomy Society (PRAS) reported. "The new images clearly show an enormous lake of lava, fed from the subsoil and which exists permanently," PRAS vice president, professor and scientist Armando Caussade said in a statement. The Large Binocular Telescope Observatory in Arizona was the one that spotted the mass of lava in the region known as Loki Patera, a volcanic pit measuring approximately 200 kilometers (124 miles) in diameter. PRAS spokesman Juan Villafañe...

Scientists Eye Jupiter’s Moon By Jove, Water on Europa? (abc news mention hoagland for europa discoveries) The ridges and fractures on Europa’s surface almost look like intersecting freeways. This image, taken by Galileo Feb. 20, 1997, also shows the dome-like bumps that could be caused by warmer ice pushing up from below. (JPL/NASA) By Kenneth Chang ABCNEWS.com By Kenneth Chang ABCNEWS.com Beneath the icy surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa, something appears to be flowing. And if that something is liquid water, could there be any extraterrestrial fish swimming in there? Science writer Richard Hoagland first suggested the idea of oceans...