Scientists have measured temperatures beneath the surface of Jupiter's volcanic moon Io, offering the first-ever glimpse of the hidden heat driving the most volcanically active world in the solar system.
During close flybys of Io in late 2023 and early 2024, NASA's Juno spacecraft turned its Microwave Radiometer (MWR) instrument toward the moon, probing roughly six to 20 feet (two to six meters) beneath its surface. Originally designed to peer through Jupiter's thick clouds, the instrument instead revealed a powerful new way to study how heat moves through planetary crusts, according to a statement from the space agency.
"The surprising discovery that we could see below a rocky moon's surface has important implications for studying Earth's volcanoes," Scott Bolton, coauthor of the study and Juno's principal investigator, said in the statement. "Juno has taught us that if we look with an MWR-type instrument near...
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