Io Jupiters pizza moon

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Io Jupiters pizza moon
Io is the most volcanically active planet or moon
in the solar system
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Plumes visible from Earth
A volcanic plume rises from Io (lower left edge).
Credit NASA
Io passing in front of Jupiter
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Galileo probe captures eruption
The Galileo spacecraft caught this volcanic
eruption at Io's Tvashtar Catena region in 1999.
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Io Facts 1

• diameter 2175 miles
• heated internally by close gravitational
  (tidal) interactions between Jupiter, Ganymede
  and Europa
• tallest volcanic mountain 52,000 ft (2 x Mt.
  Everest)
• volcanoes erupt large quantities of
  sulfur-rich gaseous plumes and silicate magma
• thin atmosphere probably sulphur dioxide
• only a third the size of Earth and five times
  as far from the Sun, Io generates twice our total
  terrestrial heat bill

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Io Facts 2

• no liquids on surface
• underneath the crust lies a core of iron and
  iron sulfide
• this molten center is likely about half the
  moon's total observed size.
• this iron core rotates internally as Io's
  orbit passes through the intense magnetic fields
  that circumscribe Jupiter.

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extremophiles?
Most critical to astrobiologists studying
Jupiter's moons, the eccentricity or oval shaped
orbits of Jupiter's moons are pumped or
oscillated by tidal forces as they orbit. this
input of Jupiter's gravitational energy heats up
the inner moons particularly like Io without
relying only on the Sun's radiant heat, and thus
gives an interesting way to provide one of the
three ingredients for life--an energy
source--even if far from the Sun.
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Titan images
methane-containing clouds near the S. pole of
Titan
smog haze surrounding Titan
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Titan atmosphere

• Visibile light cannot escape from the veil of
  orange smog that covers Titan's surface
• The moon's dry cold atmosphere causes a 300 km
  thick layer of smog to build up.
• The smog, just like on Earth, forms when
  sunlight interacts with hydrocarbon molecules.

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Organic compounds from methane
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Titan What is Special?

• long streaks on surface, some 20 km wide
  (volcanic ridges?),
• underground ocean (water?, with extremophiles?),
  
• very smooth surface with few craters (young,
  with mushy layer?)

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Surface smooth with few craters
relatively young surface
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Titan Views
This view of Titan's south polar region reveals
an intriguing dark feature that may be the site
of a past or present lake of liquid hydrocarbons.
A red cross below center in the scene marks the
pole. The brightest features seen here are
methane clouds.
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Titan Views
artists conception of surface of Titan rocky
surface imaged from Huygens lander
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Hubble Telescope - Surface Reconstruction
From October 4 to 18, 1994, the Hubble Space
Telescope Planetary Camera took 53 images of
Titan at wavelengths ranging from the ultraviolet
to the near-infrared. Fourteen of those images
have been used to make the first albedo map of
Titan's surface
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JPL Movie of Titan
http//saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/flash/Titan/
index.html
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Saturns second-largest moonRhea
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This artist's conception provided by NASA shows
the ring of debris that may orbit Saturn's
second-largest moon, Rhea, shown at left. These
new observations, detected by the Cassini
spacecraft suggest Saturn's second-largest moon
may be surrounded by rings, possibly the first
time a ring system has been found around a
moon. (AP Photo/NASA/JPL/JHUAPL)