Launched in August 2011 by NASA’s New Frontiers program, the Juno space probe is one of the many successful projects of the North American astronomy agency. She arrived at Jupiter in 2016 and has been exploring the regions near the gas giant ever since.
It is the first tool that showed us Jupiter as scientists had theorized. And despite spending so much time in the remote regions of our Solar System, his work continues to be carried out as in its early days.
Jupiter would have about 600 moons, say scientific studies. But the planet is so big that it is very complex to locate them all. For now, there are only 92 confirmed natural satellites and one of the most important is Io.
Discovered in 1610, at some point it was theorized that life could exist on this surface. However, years of distant observations determined that it is practically impossible. And now, thanks to a recent close-up of Juno, NASA has obtained never-before-seen images of Io that confirm many things about its composition.
It is an inhospitable moon, it is the first thing we have to know. According to what you review Computer Hey It registers temperatures that rise to 1725 degrees Celsius. It also has a swarm of active volcanoes, which generate rivers of lava.
The quality of the images is not perfect, but they are the most realistic photographs that have been obtained by the NASA instrument.
The photos were taken at just over 51 thousand kilometers and the images show brown and reddish spots that confirm the volcanic nature of this moon.
There are still nine more Juno close-ups on Io to go. These photos were taken at 51 thousand kilometers, but in May of this year she will be at 35 thousand. The best of all should be that of February 2024, when she will be positioned just 1,500 meters away.
On March 1, 2023, NASA’s Juno spacecraft flew alongside Jupiter’s moon Io, coming within 51,500 km of the innermost and third-largest of the four Galilean moons taking stunning images. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill) pic.twitter.com/vfHOLukOGa
– Mar Gomez (@MarGomezH) March 5, 2023