Volcano born from 'nothing' on Jupiter's moon lo didn't exist 25 years back

Jupiter's moon lo has a new volcano, new photos shared by the Juno spacecraft show. The most volcanic body in the Solar System developed this feature sometime in the last 25 years.

The new volcano is located towards the south of Io's equator near an existing volcano called Kanehekili. Volcanic activity on lo is caused by tidal heating and the volcanoes sit in the moon's equatorial region, within about 30 degrees north and south of the equator.

The proof of the volcano being new lies in the images captured by NASA's Galileo spacecraft in 1997. When it photographed the region at the time, the surface was featureless.

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The discovery was confirmed after JunoCam clicked an image of the region in April 2024. It showed multiple lava flows and volcanic deposits covering an area of about 180 kilometres by 180 kilometres.

"Our recent JunoCam images show many changes on Io, including this large, complicated volcanic feature that appears to have formed from nothing since 1997," Michael Ravine, the Advanced Projects Manager at Malin Space Science Systems, said.

The company built and operates JunoCam for NASA's Juno mission.

Did the volcano really rise from nothing?

lo has over 400 active volcanoes and the reason for this is the lack of a subsurface ocean. Jupiter and lo's fellow moon Europa cause tidal friction which is dissipated as orbital and heat energy in Io.

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This heat on Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto keeps their subsurface oceans in liquid form.

However, since lo does not have an ocean, the heat results in magma rising and breaking through the surface as volcanoes.

JunoCam took the best shot of the new volcano on February 3rd, 2024, from a distance of about 2,530 km. The image shows Io illuminated with sunlight reflected off of Jupiter.