For this week's APOD, I chose the picture called Io in True Color, updated on October 3, 2010. It was taken in July of 1999, when the Galileo spacecraft orbited Jupiter from 1995 to 2003. Io is one of Jupiter's volcanic moons, and in this picture the moon's true colors are shown, as it appears to be bright yellow.
This moon is supposedly the strangest moon in the solar system, because of its yellow color. It got its yellow color from sulfur (which can also be found in meteorites), and molten silicate rock, which is a mineral. Because its surface undergoes a lot of active volcanoes (so active that they are turning the entire moon upside down), Io is kept very young looking. Sometimes the lava from the volcanoes gets so hot, that it tends to glow in the dark. And, because of Jupiter's tidal gravity on this moon, the moon tends to stretch. Io damps wobbles as well because of the forces of Jupiter's about 62 other moons. Friction between the moons is created, which, as a result, makes the interior of Io to heat, which in turn makes molten rock explode to the surface of Io.
No comments:
Post a Comment