Credit: NASA
Jupiter’s moon, Io, is the most volcanically active body in the solar system. Studying the thermal emission from Io’s erupting volcanos can provide constraints on the composition of Io’s lavas, which in turn provides important information on the degree of melting in Io’s upper mantle. Ashley G. Davies and his colleagues observed a brief but powerful volcanic eruption at Io’s Marduk Fluctus volcano by analyzing Galileo Near-Infrared Mapping Spectrometer observations of the region. The findings indicate that a short time-scaled but more powerful thermal event might be appropriate for determining the eruption temperatures of Io lavas.
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