Science and Health

Data reveal magma ocean under Jupiter moon: JPL

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2011-05-13 09:33

LOS ANGELES - A subsurface ocean of molten or partially molten magma exists beneath the surface of Jupiter's volcanic moon Io, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) said on Thursday.

"The finding heralds the first direct confirmation of this kind of magma layer at Io and explains why the moon is the most volcanic object known in the solar system," JPL said in a press release posted on its website.

The finding was based on new data analysis from NASA's Galileo spacecraft, said JPL.

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The research was conducted by scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles; the University of California, Santa Cruz;, and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. The study is published this week in the journal Science, JPL said.

"Scientists are excited we finally understand where Io's magma is coming from and have an explanation for some of the mysterious signatures we saw in some of the Galileo's magnetic field data," said Krishan Khurana, lead author of the study and former co- investigator on Galileo's magnetometer team at UCLA.

"It turns out Io was continually giving off a 'sounding signal' in Jupiter's rotating magnetic field that matched what would be expected from molten or partially molten rocks deep beneath the surface."

Io produces about 100 times more lava each year than all the volcanoes on Earth, according to data released by JPL in Pasadena, Los Angeles.

While Earth's volcanoes occur in localized hotspots like the "Ring of Fire" around the Pacific Ocean, Io's volcanoes are distributed all over its surface, JPL said, adding that a global magma ocean about 30 to 50 km beneath Io's crust helps explain the moon's activity.

"It has been suggested that both the Earth and its moon may have had similar magma oceans billions of years ago at the time of their formation, but they have long since cooled," said Torrence Johnson, a former Galileo project scientist based at JPL, an affiliation with NASA.

"Io's volcanism informs us how volcanoes work and provides a window in time to styles of volcanic activity that may have occurred on the Earth and moon during their earliest history," said Johnson, who was not directly involved in the study.

NASA's Voyager spacecraft discovered Io's volcanoes in 1979, making that moon the only body in the solar system other than Earth known to have active magma volcanoes. The energy for the volcanic activity comes from the squeezing and stretching of the moon by Jupiter's gravity as Io orbits the largest planet in the solar system.

Galileo was launched in 1989 and began orbiting Jupiter in 1995. Unexplained signatures appeared in magnetic field data from Galileo flybys of Io in October 1999 and February 2000. After a successful mission, the spacecraft was intentionally sent into Jupiter's atmosphere in 2003.