Io Rotating
Are any volcanoes on Io currently erupting?
To help answer this, scientists instructed the robot spacecraft Galileo
to take hourly pictures of this moon
of Jupiter prior to its most recent
encounter. The most obvious changes in Io are due to the changing
amount of sunlight reflected from the moon to the spacecraft.
More careful inspection does verify continuous volcanic plumes.
The most prominent plume visible is from Prometheus, visible
just below Io's
equator. This plume was first photographed in 1979 by Voyager,
so Prometheus appears to have been erupting continuously for at
least 18 years! On most browsers, the above picture will appear
animated. To stop the movie, click on your broswer's "stop"
button.