Io, moon of Jupiter
Click on image for full size
Courtesy of NASA
Io is a Salty Moon!
News story originally written on January 3, 2003
Astronomers have discovered that the volcanoes on Io, a moon of Jupiter, are shooting salt into the moon’s atmosphere. The salt spurts out in the form of a gas adding the sodium to the clouds around Io.
Scientists have known that Io’s atmosphere was salty for decades but they did not know why. Bob Brown discovered sodium, an element within salt, in the clouds of Io’s atmosphere in 1974. He was surprised that no one had found it before, but, as Darrell Strobel, a professor at Johns Hopkins University said about the discovery, “nobody was looking for it; nobody would have guessed it was there”.
Now scientists like Darrell Strobel have discovered that it is the many volcanoes that are causing the moon to be so salty. Io is more volcanically active than any other planet or moon in our solar system. “Roughly two tons of volcanic material are tossed into Io’s magnetosphere every second,” says Darrell Strobel. The intense volcanic activity is caused by stress put on Io by the gravitational fields of two larger moons, Ganymede and Europa, and an eccentric orbit around Jupiter. These stresses cause Io’s crust to flex and its core to heat.
Scientists intend to do future analyses to understand how the salt is broken down into sodium and chlorine atoms within the moon’s atmosphere. They hope this will help us understand what type of material originally came together to form Io.
Shop Windows to the Universe Science Store!
Learn about Earth and space science, and have fun while doing it! The
games section of our
online store includes a
climate change card game and the
Traveling Nitrogen game!
You might also be interested in:
Europa was first discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610, making it one of the Galilean Satellites. Europa is Jupiter's 4th largest moon, 670,900 km from Jupiter. With a diameter that is about half the distance
...more
It was another exciting and frustrating year for the space science program. It seemed that every step forward led to one backwards. Either way, NASA led the way to a great century of discovery. Unfortunately,
...more
The Space Shuttle Discovery lifted off from Kennedy Space Center at 2:19 p.m. EST, October 29th. The sky was clear and the weather was great as Discovery took 8 1/2 minutes to reach orbit for the Unitied
...more
A moon was discovered orbiting the asteroid, Eugenia. This is only the second time in history that a satellite has been seen circling an asteroid. A special mirror allowed scientists to find the moon
...more
Will Russia ever put the service module for the International Space Station in space? NASA officials are demanding an answer from the Russian government. The necessary service module is currently waiting
...more
During a period of about two days in early May, 1998, the ACE spacecraft was immersed in plasma associated with a coronal mass ejection (CME). The SWICS instrument on ACE, which determines unambiguously
...more
J.S. Maini of the Canadian Forest Service has referred to forests as the "heart and lungs of the world." Forests reduce soil erosion, maintain water quality, contribute to atmospheric humidity and cloud
...more
