Astronomy Picture of the Week – Io Moon Of Jupiter

Io is the most volcanically active body in the solar system. It is the innermost of Jupiter’s four major moons also known as the Galilean moons, named after their discoverer. Io’s surface is constantly under construction. The volcanic eruptions quickly reshape every part of the moon’s crust, so that a map of Io wouldn’t stay accurate for quite long. This image is a composite of many photos taken by the Galileo spacecraft in 1996. The surface of Io has drastically changed many times since then. I wonder what it would look like today…

Image Credit: The Galileo Project, JPL, NASA