News Planetary Science

Juno reveals dozens of lava lakes on Jupiter’s moon Io

High-resolution images offer a glimpse at what might lie within the gas giant’s most fiery moon

This image shows Jupiter's moon Io, taken from the Galileo spacecraft. It looks like a yellowish pockmarked world on a black background.

Jupiter’s moon Io, seen here in a photo from the Galileo spacecraft, is the most volcanically active body in the solar system.

JPL/NASA, University of Arizona

By Katherine Kornei

Jupiter’s moon Io, the most volcanically active body in the solar system, is littered with hundreds of erupting volcanoes. High-resolution images now reveal several dozen lava lakes, researchers report in the February Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets.