- Original Caption Released with Image:
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Variations in the appearance of the giant plume from the Tvashtar volcano
on Jupiter's moon Io are seen in this composite of the best photos taken
by the New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) during its
Jupiter flyby in late February-early March 2007.
New Horizons was fortunate to witness this unusually large plume during
its brief Jupiter flyby; the Galileo Jupiter orbiter spent more than five
years imaging the volcanic moon (between 1996 and 2001) without ever
capturing such detailed pictures of a large Io plume. The plume is roughly
330 kilometers (200 miles) high. The cause of the fine wispy structure in
the plume, which varies strikingly from image to image, is unknown, but
these pictures may help scientists to understand the phenomenon.
The pictures were taken at distances ranging from 3.1 to 2.3 million
kilometers (1.9 to 1.4 million miles), but they have been scaled to show
the plume at the same relative size in every frame. Illumination
conditions also vary: in the final image, Io's shadow cuts across the
plume and hides all but its topmost regions, and the glow of hot lava can
be seen on the nightside at the source of the plume. The times of the
images, from top to bottom, are: February 26, 18:38 (Universal Time);
February 26, 21:01; February 28, 03:50; February 28, 04:40; February 28,
11:04; and March 1, 00:35.
- Image Credit:
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NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest
Research Institute
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