Titanic volcanic eruption seen on Io [Photos r too cool for school]

The new scientist ^ | 11/14/02

[1bigdictator]

Titanic volcanic eruption seen on Io

14:50 14 November 02

NewScientist.com news service

A titanic volcanic eruption has been spotted on the surface of Jupiter's volatile moon Io using a telescope back on Earth. Astronomers believe it to be the most powerful eruption ever witnessed in the entire Solar System.... [see link for photos].

[GaltMeister]

"The volcano is far more powerful than any eruption recorded by scientists on Earth, with an estimated power output of about 78,000 gigawatts. By comparison, the power produced by the last significant eruption of Mount Etna in Italy in 1992 was just 12 gigawatts."

Wow ... we are talking some serious energy released on that little moon!

[1bigdictator]

Something of that magnitude on Earth would probably lead to total extinction of all life... or at least another long ice age.

[perfect stranger]

[rmlew]

It's a giant ZIT!

[RightWhale]

The reason this is too kool is that it was imaged with a ground-based telescope. Keck II on Hawaii with adaptive optics. Io used to be either a dot in the big telescope or a satellite image. New stuff.

[sarasmom]

ping-you like this sort of thing, right?

Cool.

[aruanan]

"The volcano is far more powerful than any eruption recorded by scientists on Earth, with an estimated power output of about 78,000 gigawatts. By comparison, the power produced by the last significant eruption of Mount Etna in Italy in 1992 was just 12 gigawatts."

How many gigawatts did it take for the flux capacitor to power the DeLorean back to the future? Was it 1.2 gigawatts?

[fone]

||| Something of that magnitude on Earth would probably lead to total extinction of all life... or at least another long ice age |||

Worse than that, the FR server would definitely go down =-(

[Gone_Postal]

Hilliary has gas

[germanicus]

I don't know if IO has an atmosphere or not but this could cause some major global warming.

[krizzy]

That would be 1.21 gigawatts

[FreedomCalls]

It looks to me like a meteor impacting the surface rather than a volcano erupting. You can see the black ejecta around the impact point where the hot lava is left behind.

[GaltMeister]

I don't know if IO has an atmosphere or not but this could cause some major global warming.

Uh-Oh ... we better not let AlBore find out about this, or there's hell to pay...

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

Titanic volcanic eruption seen on Io

Women, minorities, and black monoliths hit hardest.

[MHGinTN]

This looks series. Poor little Io, so close to Jupiter, so much grabitational tension!

[Senator Pardek]

...adaptive optics...

By what it's called, I assume it's done in real-time (and done physically). I have audio software that removes noise (by first sampling the noise by itself and then removing it from the signal) but it's "after the fact".

Can you explain to a layman like myself how adaptive optics work? Seems Herculean to me.

[perfect stranger]

Dictionary.com-
" e·jec·ta Pronunciation Key (-jkt) pl.n. Ejected matter, as that from an erupting volcano."

I see your point and raise you the credibility of the source.

[RightWhale]

It is really on the edge of technology. The mirror is segmented in several parts, each piece is mounted separately and can be aligned separately under automatic control. This can be used to cancel out atmospherics such as heat waves. Small telescopes have better resolution for their size because of atmospherics, and this system is essentially several smaller telescopes together. Net result, small aperture resolution with large aperature light gathering capability.

[aruanan]

Thanks!

[Pistolshot]

"All these worlds are yours to use except IO. Make no attempt to land there. Use them in friendship. Use them in peace."

Guess that's out now.

[Vinnie_Vidi_Vici]

"All these worlds are yours to use except IO. Make no attempt to land there. Use them in friendship. Use them in peace." Guess that's out now.

I believe Aurthur C. Clarke was writing about Europa when he wrote that line!

[Mr. Mojo]

I believe Aurthur C. Clarke was writing about Europa when he wrote that line!

Indeed he was, and for good reason. Europa could very well contain liquid water under the ice/rock sheet that coveres most (if not all) of its surface. If Jupiter had a bit more mass, it could generate enough internal heat to initiate nuclear reactions, and a star would be born. If I remember correctly, Clarke hypothesized that Europa's ice sheets would then melt, and a very earth-like (but geographically flat) planet would emerge.

[stands2reason]

bump

[jonathanmo]

Bush and the Far Right Blamed.

[grumpster-dumpster]

Neat pictures! Just how big is Io anyway (Compared to our own moon)?

[Consort]

[eddie willers]

grabitational

LOL!
Send this "flub" to Karl Rove.
Approval ratings will go up 2 points.

[Senator Pardek]

This can be used to cancel out atmospherics such as heat waves.

Cool. But heat waves? I just read an article on it - it reacts in the ms. range.

[FreedomCalls]

There was a time when there was a big debate in the scientific community as to whether the craters on the moon were caused primarily by volcanoes or by impacts.

It is very difficult to tell just by observation when you don't have detailed images.

An ancient Greek astronomer (I've forgotten which) reported seeing a bright flash on the limb of the moon. Some historian/astronomers believe that this was an observation of the impact of the object that created the Copernicus crater (one of the youngest on the moon's surface).

It is not unresaonable to think an astronomer would use Occam's razor and postulate that these are images of a volcano. Perhaps it is more of a stretch to think they might have caught images of an actual impact. It would especialy be true if the astronomer had not heard of the ancient observation.

Shoemaker-Levy proved that we can see the effects of impacts on a planetary object.

It's not in the realm of the impossible that they captured an impact in progress.

Q.E.D.

[Charles Henrickson]

Close-up of Michael Jackson's nose?

[fone]

||| Just how big is Io anyway (Compared to our own moon)? |||

Less than 80 km! In planetary terms, very close! Almost twins? Thankfully, our moon does not have such volcanic activity. I shudder to think the effects it could have on Earth.

Io Statistics
Discovered by	Simon Marius & Galileo Galilei
Date of discovery	1610
Mass (kg)	8.94e+22
Mass (Earth = 1)	1.4960e-02
Equatorial radius (km)	1,815
Equatorial radius (Earth = 1)	2.8457e-01
Mean density (gm/cm^3)	3.55
Mean distance from Jupiter (km)	421,600
Rotational period (days)	1.769138
Orbital period (days)	1.769138
Mean orbital velocity (km/sec)	17.34
Orbital eccentricity	0.004
Orbital inclination (degrees)	0.040
Escape velocity (km/sec)	2.56
Visual geometric albedo	0.61
Mean surface temperature	-143°C
Magnitude (Vo)	5.02

Moon Statistics
Mass (kg)	7.349e+22
Mass (Earth = 1)	1.2298e-02
Equatorial radius (km)	1,737.4
Equatorial radius (Earth = 1)	2.7241e-01
Mean density (gm/cm^3)	3.34
Mean distance from Earth (km)	384,400
Rotational period (days)	27.32166
Orbital period (days)	27.32166
Average length of lunar day (days)	29.53059
Mean orbital velocity (km/sec)	1.03
Orbital eccentricity	0.0549
Tilt of axis (degrees)	1.5424
Orbital inclination (degrees)	5.1454
Equatorial surface gravity (m/sec^2)	1.62
Equatorial escape velocity (km/sec)	2.38
Visual geometric albedo	0.12
Magnitude (Vo)	-12.74
Mean surface temperature (day)	107°C
Mean surface temperature (night)	-153°C
Maximum surface temperature	123°C
Minimum surface temperature	-233°C

Courtesy www.solarviews.com

[fone]

||| Close-up of Michael Jackson's nose? |||

On a good day...

[grumpster-dumpster]

Thanks for the info! Very interesting, I can now "see" the size of the eruption.
Thanks again,
-grump

[fone]

I was looking at those tables again, it rotates as fast as it orbits the planet? One day! WOW. Sounds like an amusement park ride I was on last summer =-)

Looking up the answer to your question was an education for me also... the universe sure is an amazing creation.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Anything you work on?

[Dave in Eugene of all places]

I used to read this stuff way back when. Clarke wrote a lot about the solar syatem and space in general that was based on known facts of the time. He was also the first known to envision our fleet of geostationary satellites. I have probably read almost every word he has written, and still have some of the books around. The comment about Eoropa was, I believe, from the prologue chapter of "2010: Odyssey II". It was a great tale that was ruined by Hollywood.

Another great author from the past, Heinlein (sp?), wrote of earth people doing something to Jupiter that started the nuclear reaction and turned it into a second sun, generating heat that warmed Jupiter's moons, and they colonized Ganymede, I think. Today, Europa is regarded as more Earth like.

Off topic, but I read most of Heinlein way back when I was in high school, in the '70s. They were fascinating because the technology used to do all those great things was already 20-30 years old when I read them. The electronics, computers, etc. had vacuum tubes. I've never seen a computing device that used tubes but I understand they were rather large. Yet people were getting them to escape velocity and flying around in space with them. Also, he didn't utilize things like warp speed or hyperspace, so space travel took a long time and involved the whole family.

Dave in Eugene

[grumpster-dumpster]

I was looking at those tables again, it rotates as fast as it orbits the planet? One day! WOW. Sounds like an amusement park ride I was on last summer =-)"

Well, I'm not a scientific type of person (Unless you consider "Beer" science! LOL!) So next time, I'll ask for something really tough...a comparison between Io and a '73 Buick Le Sabre!

I agree the universe is an amazing place... Maybe I'll visit it one day! :o)
Best wishes,
-grump

[patriot5186]

hell with that...look at that feedback link to find out all you wanted to know about hamster's gonads! those whacky scientists.

[RadioAstronomer]

Nope. But this is cool! Thanks for the ping. :-)

[RadioAstronomer]

Astronomers believe it to be the most powerful eruption ever witnessed in the entire Solar System

Should read planetary eruption. Io is pretty small. IMHO, a Solar Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) from the Sun is just a wee bit more powerful and a touch larger! :-)

[RadioAstronomer]

Fun science ping.

[MHGinTN]

I think it means 'volcanic eruption'. A coronal ejection isn't the same thing is it?... On another note, could this eruption actually be due to an impact? It appears to be so massive, so out of proportion to Io's size.

[CarolAnn]

A coronal ejection is the energy released by our sun following an event like a solar flare. They are what causes Auroras here on Earth.

[RadioAstronomer]

I was looking at those tables again, it rotates as fast as it orbits the planet?

Which means that one side of the moon is facing Jupiter. This type of orbit is called a synchronous orbit. Our own moon is in this type of orbit around the earth. Why they used to say there is a dark side of the moon. Not because it “dark”, but because we could never see the far side of the moon from the surface of the Earth.

However, due to gravity interaction (orbital resonance) with its neighbors such as Europa and Ganymede (also moons of Jupiter), the orbit of Io is elliptical and one side does not face exactly to Jupiter all the time.

Note: The tidal forces on Io due to Jupiter trying to circularize it's orbit and the forces from the other moons trying to make the Io’s orbit elliptical creates the energy that make the moon so geologically active.

[RadioAstronomer]

I think it means 'volcanic eruption'

Yup, I knew what they meant, just that it was not clearly written and I was having a bit of fun :-).

[MHGinTN]

I'm not much on geology, so, wouldn't an eruption of this magnitude, with no other eruptions across the surface indicate an impact cause?

[MHGinTN]

If memory serves, Io is thought to have a simblance of plate tectonics, so one massive eruption, if not caused by an impact would be one of several rather than an anomoly, is that correct?

[RadioAstronomer]

I'm not much on geology, so, wouldn't an eruption of this magnitude, with no other eruptions across the surface indicate an impact cause?

I also am not a planetary geologist, however, I believe that the internal elasticity and the tidal forces could cause such an erruption.

I will defer to the geologists. :-)

[MHGinTN]

Wow, all that 'grabitational' force on Io must be positively wrenching!