The incredible four spots space tourists can explore on Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io, including the obsidian lava lake

IO — Jupiter’s third-largest moon — may look like a volcanic hellscape, but it could be a destination for future thrill-seeking space tourists.

The solitary moon, a quarter the size of Earth, is covered by about 400 active volcanoes and more than 135 mountains.

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In a future where there are extraterrestrial human colonies and heat-resistant space suits, excursions to Io could become popular.

Scientists have only seen the volcanic planet from afar.

But new animations from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), based on data collected by its Juno spacecraft in December and February of this year, show what Io looks like up close.

The specular reflection our instruments recorded in the lake suggests that parts of Io’s surface are as smooth as glass, reminiscent of the volcanically created obsidian glass on Earth.

Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator at NASA

Loki Patera

Io is home to many lava lakes, but one of particular interest to NASA – and therefore tourists – is Loki Patera.

“Io is just full of volcanoes, and we captured some of them in action,” Juno lead researcher Scott Bolton said at a press conference in mid-April when the animations were released.

“We also got great close-ups and other data from a 200-kilometer-long lava lake called Loki Patera.”

This active lava lake caught the attention of scientists for a unique reason: its extremely reflective surface.

Unlike Earth’s lakes, Loki Patera’s glow is due to entirely different properties.

“There are amazing details that show these crazy islands embedded in the middle of a potentially magma lake surrounded by hot lava,” Bolton explained.

“The specular reflection that our instruments recorded in the lake suggests that parts of Io’s surface are as smooth as glass, reminiscent of obsidian glass created volcanically on Earth.”

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Campanile Mountain

This highly unusual mountain is sure to attract space tourists.

Nicknamed “Steeple Mountain” by the Juno science team, the landmark is between 5 and 7 kilometers tall.

One side of Steeple Mountain is in shadow in the animation because only one side of the mountain was illuminated when photographed by JunoCam.

But walking through its towering shadow would be like night and day on the ground.

Mount Boösaule

Mount Boösaule is the longest and highest mountain on Io – and surpasses all mountain ranges on Earth.

It is 350 miles (570 km) long and an incredible 17,500 meters (57,400 feet) high.

This is almost twice the size of Everest, the tallest mountain on Earth, which is around 8,849 meters high.

Its size makes Boösaule hard to miss.

But future space tourists could travel from far away to climb it, just like its Nepalese counterpart.

Because Io is much smaller than Earth, there is much less gravity pulling you down.

Thus, interstellar travelers may find it easier to climb – and summit – than any mountain on Earth.

Mysterious dunes

Unlike all the other moons, Io has no impact craters to observe – unlike Mars.

This is because Io’s many volcanic eruptions tend to eliminate any impact craters.

What Io does have a lot of, however, are mysterious “big” sand dunes — despite the lack of wind blowing them into formation.

“Our studies point to the possibility of Io as a new ‘dune world,’” wrote George McDonald, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Rutgers, in a 2022 paper. to study.

“We proposed, and quantitatively tested, a mechanism by which sand grains can move and, in turn, dunes can form there.”

These undulating sandbars are believed to be “considerably more varied than the classic, endless desert landscapes on parts of Earth or the fictional planet Arrakis in ‘Dune,’” according to McDonald.

But its very existence has baffled scientists for years.

Classical wind-blown dunes, like those found on Earth, were not originally considered possible on Io, due to its low-density atmosphere.

Scientists now consider that the chemical reaction produced when lava flows into sulfur dioxide beneath the Moon’s surface is “dense and fast enough to move grains on Io and possibly allow the formation of large-scale structures like dunes,” he said. Mc Donald’s.

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