Extract from ABC News
NASA has released detailed images of Io, one of about 90 moons revolving around Jupiter, using the space agency's Juno probe.
The spacecraft captured the images of the moon on a recent flyby. The images were created by citizen scientists who processed them using the raw data captured by the Juno probe.
What is Io?
Io is the most volcanically active world in the Solar System, according to NASA. Hundreds of volcanoes cover its mottled surface, some erupting lava fountains that reach kilometres high.
So powerful are these volcanic blasts that they are, at times, able to be observed from Earth using large telescopes.
Io even has lakes of molten silicate lava on its surface.
The new images from the Juno probe reveal the moon's swirling surface, highlighted with large molten-red patches.
Only slightly larger than the Earth's Moon, Io is stuck in a tug-of-war between Jupiter's massive gravity as well as orbital pulls from two of Jupiter's other moons — Europa and Ganymede.
The result is that Io is frequently stretched and squeezed by the pull, actions NASA says are linked to the torrents of lava seen erupting from its multiple volcanoes.
Juno will return to observe more of this volatile moon in December when the probe will buzz just 1,500 kilometres above Io's surface.
Never-before-seen feature discovered in Jupiter's atmosphere
NASA has been particularly interested in the biggest planet in our solar system this week, with the James Webb telescope unveiling a secret in Jupiter's atmosphere.
Using data from Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) captured in July 2022, researchers were able to identify a high-speed jet stream that spans more than 4,800km just above Jupiter's equator.
The newly discovered jet stream travels at 515kph — twice the sustained winds of a category 5 hurricane on Earth.
It is located around 40km above Jupiter's clouds in the planet's lower stratosphere.
The discovery was not only a breakthrough in how scientists understand Jupiter's infamously turbulent atmosphere but also how the Webb telescope could capture more of these features in the future.
"This is something that totally surprised us," said Ricardo Hueso of the University of the Basque Country in Bilbao, Spain, lead author on the paper describing the findings.
"What we have always seen as blurred hazes in Jupiter's atmosphere now appear as crisp features that we can track along with the planet's fast rotation."
Why is Jupiter blue in these images?
Don't stress, the dark orange and cream Jupiter that is familiar to most isn't changing colours.
These images were also taken using JWST's NIRCam, which covers the infrared wavelength range from 0.6 to 5 microns, and Mid-InfraRed Instrument, which covers the infrared wavelength range from 5 to 28 microns.
The equipment allows astronomers to take pictures of very faint objects around a central bright object, a NASA fact sheet says.
It works by blocking out the brighter object's light, which makes it possible to capture the dimmer object nearby.
Each image was taken using a different filter to capture different wavelengths, and each filter has been assigned a different colour.
The colour comes from layering all of these images on top of each other.
In the Jupiter images, the bright white spots and streaks are likely very high-altitude cloud tops of condensed convective storms.
The red parts are auroras, which extend to higher altitudes above both the northern and southern poles of the planet.
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