NASA spacecraft captures images of Jupiter's moon Io teeming with lava-spewing volcanoes

A NASA spacecraft is coming closer to a Moon in the solar system which is rife with volcanoes that spew lava. Images of the Jovian moon Io were just captured by the ground-breaking Juno spacecraft, which arrived at Jupiter in 2016 and is currently swooping past the planet's fascinating moons. The photographs were taken from a distance of about 32,044 miles (51,570 kilometres). 

The shots taken on March 1 are Juno's "best images so far of Io's colourful surface," according to Jason Perry, a professional imaging processor who posted the new images to NASA's Juno website. The photographs enable planetary scientists and the general public to identify surface features and volcanoes on Io, the solar system's most volcanically active planet.

The vistas of Io will become more distinct and captivating in 2023. As Juno revolves around Jupiter and approaches the ephemeral moon Io, it will gradually get closer to the dynamic moon. By the end of the year, the spaceship will pass Io at a distance of just 1,500 kilometres, or 930 miles. The moon is approximately 240,000 miles away from Earth.

NASA's Juno spacecraft captured this image of Jupiter's moon IO during a flyby last week pic.twitter.com/MiDWavjUAn via latestinspace

— Apollo (@DUNKSLAB_APOLLO)

Io is caught in a never-ending 'tug-of-war' between Europa & Ganymede

"We're marching closer and closer," Scott Bolton, the Juno mission's principal investigator, told Mashable. "It's a real tortured moon," Bolton, who works at the Southwest Research Institute, a research organisation that often partners with NASA, added. "It's just this beautiful place."

Io is tortured because it is caught in a never-ending "tug-of-war" with two of Jupiter's other large moons, Europa and Ganymede, a world that may contain a substantial ocean. A globe somewhat larger than our moon is heated intensely by this intense push and pull. Extreme volcanism and molten lava are produced as a result of all this heat trying to reach the surface.

Very unlikely conditions may exist on a globe covered in lava for even the most resilient species to evolve. Nonetheless, some moons in the solar system, such as the Saturnian moons Enceladus and Mimas, may provide favourable conditions for the emergence of life on their subsurface (and, of course, Europa).

'It's just a beautiful place', says a NASA official

These photos are used by researchers like Bolton, among other things, to locate new volcanoes. The darker areas are frequently the sites of recent eruptions, and recent NASA images demonstrate the ongoing volcanism. Whether Io contains a vast lava ocean or merely massive pockets of molten rock is a big question.

The following diagram illustrates how the Juno spacecraft will approach Io; rather than straight approaching the moon, it will swerve by its orbit. On each orbit, Juno will take images as it approaches Jupiter's gas giant closest before reversing course. The orbit of Juno (PJ 58) will bring it within around 930 miles of Io by the end of December 2023.

It's not easy for a robotic spacecraft to repeatedly fly around Jupiter. High radiation levels are present around the planet as a result of energised particles being held in place by Jupiter's powerful magnetic field. The essential electronics of the spacecraft are therefore kept inside a sturdy "radiation vault."