Volcanos Everywhere

Yellow sulphur everywhere on this part of Io.
And clouds of volcanic gasses almost at orbital height overhead.

Imagine you take a metal paperclip or thin wire and you bend it back and forth a bunch of times. Then touch the spot where the bending occurs. You can feel that it's hot, right?

Well, that's the life of Io, one of Jupiter's many moons. The pull of Jupiter and the other moons, means that tiny Io is stretched and compressed over and over. This generates heat.

And all that heat means the moon is a gooey liquid covered by a thin crust. That hot liquid is under pressure, and it's always looking for an escape route.

So you get volcanoes. A lot of them.

Io is the most volcanically active world in our entire solar system. It has hundreds of volcanoes, some spraying yellow and red lava fountains dozens of miles (or kilometers) high.

When we land Rocket Team geologists on Io, we don't stay long. We can't. A vent could decide to blow molten sulphur all over us or the lander, and that would make for a bad day.

More info here: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/moons/jupiter-moons/io/in-depth/

If have ever explored Jupiter's moons, which one was your favorite? Tell me at

RamoneRocketeer -at- gmail -dot- com.