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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

See Explanation. Clicking on the picture will download the highest resolution version available.

A Continuous Eruption on Jupiter's Moon Io

Explanation: A volcano on Jupiter's moon Io has been photographed recently during an ongoing eruption. Hot glowing lava is visible on the left on this representative-color image . A glowing landscape of plateaus and valleys covered in sulfur and silicate rock surrounds the active volcano . Many features including several of the dark spots have evolved between February 2000, when the robot spacecraft Galileo currently orbiting Jupiter took this picture, and November 1999. Io is slightly larger than Earth's Moon and is the closest large moon to Jupiter . The above image shows a region about 250 kilometers across. How the internal structure of Io creates these active volcanoes remains under investigation.

Date June 6, 2000
Credit Credit: Galileo Project , JPL , NASA
Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U.