There are muckle of weird volcano in our Solar System , fromicy variantson dwarf planets topancake volcanoeson Venus . On Io , though , they are utterly bonkers .
These hellish volcano , ranging from city - sized puddle of lava to gigantic volcanic shields , are all fueled by “ hotspots , ” towers ofsuperheated materialrising up from the astuteness of a magmatic ocean . Writing in the journalIcarus , researchers at the University of California ( UC ) Berkeley have announced that they have found a whopping 48 more of them .
Perhaps more signally , their raw thermic imagery datum suggests that when a peculiarly herculean upwelling sets one of the volcanoes off , it may get a chain reaction that triggers the eruption of others nearby , or even those a nous - bungle 500 kilometre ( 310 mile ) by . At present , it ’s not totally clean how this is physically possible .
“ It ’s sure as shooting imaginable that a triggering process could be occurring on Io and not on Earth , due perhaps to differences in the cheekiness or in the plumbery of the volcano , ” conduct writer Katherine de Kleer , a UC Berkeley graduate student , tell apart IFLScience .
Even more bafflingly , all of the newfangled hotspots were obtain on the “ back ” or trailing side of the moon , and nowhere else . Thermal models hint that most of Io ’s volcanic yield should be on the rod or at the equator . increase grounds appears to show that this is perhaps untrue , and no one knows why .
In accession to this violence and confusion , Loki Patera , a colossal lava lake over 200 kilometers ( 124 miles ) across , was also found to contain enormous wave . ikon a ocean of liquid fire , with solid chunks sinking down beneath the surface and causing a splash – that ’s what ’s pass here .
Io is nothing short of a poorly sympathise world of fireworks and iridescent fury . This Jovian Sun Myung Moon is covered in many hundreds of volcanic peaks that often purge out S - rich lava up to top of hundreds of kilometers , thanks to their explosivity , the low control surface gravity , and a distinct want of air pressure .
These lava jet often manage to progress to the cold bastion of space and immobilise into dismal umbrella , helping to make adeadly bandof radiation therapy that would vote down any live thing that encountered it . Even Io ’s wafer - thin atmosphere – which isprone to collapsingand inflating – is built up by these sky - eminent volcanic plumes .
All of this vivacious volcanism is powered by a mechanism known astidal heating . The orbital saltation and fundamental interaction of the nearby moons and supermassive Jupiter itself mother a unassailable gravitative drag on the innards of Io . This bring forth frictional forces so powerful that it melts solid rock into magma at a idiotic pace .
Gif in textual matter : All the volcanic outburst on Io between August 2013 and December 2015 . UC Berkeley
