Jupiter ’s lunation Io is the most geologically active place in the Solar System . This intense volcanism is due to the gravitational pull of the elephantine planet and its other three Galilean satellites , and the dim moon sports over 150 reassert volcanoes . Now planetary scientist think they have line up a novel one .
The discovery of the hotspot was possible thanks to observations made byNASA ’s Junospacecraft . As it fly past the moon , one of its instruments picked up a heat theme song that paint a picture a previously unidentified hotspot existed near Io ’s south pole . The orbiter is chiefly study Jupiter , its atm , and its magnetic fundamental interaction so this is not a primary nidus .
The Jovian InfraRed Auroral Mapper ( JIRAM ) tool discern the newfangled heat spot on December 16 , 2017 , when the probe , busy on its 10th secretive approaching of Jupiter , was just 470,000 kilometer ( 290,000 miles ) from the moonshine .
" The new Io hotspot JIRAM picked up is about 200 mile ( 300 kilometre ) from the penny-pinching previously map hot spot , " Alessandro Mura , a Juno co - investigator from the National Institute for Astrophysics in Rome , say in astatement . " We are not ruling out motion or modification of a previously discover hot spot , but it is difficult to reckon one could travel such a length and still be considered the same feature . "
The Jovian system has been visited by several spacecraft and was learn in item by the Galileo investigation in the 1990s . Researchers have estimated that 400 volcano might be found on Io . This hot touch might be the first of many new discoveries related to the moon .
The team will go along to analyze the data from this flyby as it wait for closer inspections of Io . The four flybys that have happened since , with the latest one on July 16 , did n’t allow for tightlipped inspection of the artificial satellite . But future flybys will .
The Juno mission has been renewed and will continue to wing around Jupiter for at least another three class . The last presently scheduled flyby , numeral 35 , will take place on July 30 , 2021 .
