Jupiter ’s moon Io is the most volcanically alive moon in the Solar System . It has more than 400 fighting vent spewing S into the flimsy atmosphere . However , it was indecipherable if the principal process driving the amount of gas in the atmosphere was the volcanoes or sublimation of material from the icy surface into the breeze . Now , new observations have confirmed for the first time how volcanic irruption touch on the thin layer of air around Io .
In a paper accepted for issue inThe Planetary Science Journal , researchers report the first - ever reflexion of the feather of sulfur dioxide from Io ’s volcanoes , which shows the blood line of the gas in Io ’s air , an atmosphere about a billion times thinner than Earth ’s own .
Sublimation , the turning of a solid into a gaseous state , is driven by sun , so the squad knew that to corroborate or rule out sublimation as the main mechanism they needed to get the Sun out of the equation . They studied Io as it moved into the shadow of Jupiterduring an occultation .
“ When Io drop dead into Jupiter ’s shadow , and is out of lineal sunlight , it is too insensate for S dioxide gas , and it condenses onto Io ’s control surface . During that time we can only see volcanically - source atomic number 16 dioxide . We can therefore see on the button how much of the standard pressure is impacted by volcanic activity , ” Colorado - author Statia Luszcz - Cook from Columbia University explain in astatement .
The incredibly clean notice from theAtacama Large Millimeter / submillimeter Array ( ALMA)allowed astronomers to see the plume of sulfur dioxide and atomic number 16 monoxide ( In scandalmongering in the video below ) rise from the volcanoes . The smashing answer show that 30 to 50 percent of the moonlight ’s ambiance is directly bring forth by Io ’s vent .
The team has shown that with these measure they can gain insight into not just Io ’s air but also the interior process . The discovery of different gasolene in different regions of Io paint a picture that not all magma reservoirs on the moon are the same .
The next whole tone is to mensurate the temperature of Io ’s standard atmosphere , which is not an easy task .
“ To measure the temperature of Io ’s atmosphere , we need to incur a high resolve in our observations , which command that we observe the moon for a longer catamenia of sentence . We can only do this when Io is in sun since it does not spend much prison term in occultation , ” said lead author Imke de Pater from the University of California , Berkeley . “ During such an observation , Io will rotate by ten of grade . We will require to apply software that helps us make un - smeared image . We have done this antecedently with wireless images of Jupiter made with ALMA and the Very enceinte Array ( VLA ) . ”
