NASA Solves 44-Year-Old Mystery While Exploring Solar System’s Most Volcanic World

NASA has been exploring Jupiter’s moon Io for many years now and it recently made a discovery that solved a decades-old mystery.

Thanks to observations by the Juno spacecraft, scientists now know what is fuelling the volcanoes of Io, which is the most volcanically active world in our solar system.

Behold: the most volcanic world in our solar system.

New discoveries from our #JunoMission reveal the fiery heart of Jupiter moon Io’s rage. (Yes, that is an active volcano erupting into space.) https://t.co/RZTFBf6S3U #AGU2024 pic.twitter.com/vApviRviyR
— NASA (@NASA) December 12, 2024

The findings have been published in the journal Nature, and it provides answers to questions scientists have been after for 44 years.

Scientists studying Juno’s observations, NASA says, have discovered that volcanoes on Io are each likely powered by their own chamber of roiling hot magma rather than an ocean of magma. Io is estimated to have about 400 active volcanoes and they can be seen blasting out lava and plumes from space. The agency even shared a short video from Juno of the plumes venting out into space.

What is the discovery about?

Earlier, after Io’s volcanic activity was discovered in 1979, scientists thought that the moon has a global magma ocean. But Juno, from its close flybys in December 2023 and February 2024 has helped reveal that the magma ocean is rather localised.

NASA says that its Deep Space Network communicated with Juno to measure Io’s gravity as the moon affects the spacecraft’s acceleration. The study of Io’s gravitational pull eventually led them to discover a phenomenon now called ‘tidal flexing.’

Tidal flexing occurs when Io gets squeezed by Jupiter every time it whips around the gas giant in its elliptical orbit every 42.5 hours. This squeezing causes friction internally and generates lot of heat.

ALSO SEE: NASA’s Juno Probe Uncovers Fire-Breathing Lakes On Jupiter’s Moon Io

Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute, explained that the tidal flexing “creates immense energy, which literally melts portions of Io’s interior.”

The data further gave signatures that Io does not have a subsurface global magma ocean.

“Juno’s discovery that tidal forces do not always create global magma oceans does more than prompt us to rethink what we know about Io’s interior,” said lead author Ryan Park, a Juno co-investigator and supervisor of the Solar System Dynamics Group at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

Park added that these findings have implications for understanding other moons like Enceladus and Europa and can even help learn about formation and evolution of planets.

ALSO SEE: NASA Video Shows Stunning Scene From Extremely Volcanic World Io

(Image: NASA)