Erupting volcanoes are fascinating, and the countless volcano models children&nbsp;make in schools are a testament to that. But, if volcanoes on the Earth are so intriguing, how much more amazing would it be to be able to watch volcanoes erupting somewhere out in space?

This is now possible, all thanks to NASA's Juno. The probe which last week conducted a planned flyby near Jupiter's moon 'Io' has managed to capture fascinating visuals of the alien world teeming with volcanoes.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/science/more-complex-than-we-thought-cosmologists-set-to-question-the-standards-of-how-we-view-the-universe-711506">More complex than we thought? Cosmologists set to question the standards of how we view the universe</a>

<h2>Astonishing visuals from space</h2>

Taking to X, Jason Perry, a professional photographer for CaSSIS, HiRISE, and Io Volcano Observer shared an animated GIF showing 13 images from "Juno's encounter with Io this week!".

Have a look here:

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Animated gif showing 13 of the images from Juno's encounter with Io this week! Great views of Pele, Xihe, and Io's south polar region. <a href="https://t.co/rh8zWfJiiI">pic.twitter.com/rh8zWfJiiI</a>
— Jason Perry (@volcanopele) <a href="https://twitter.com/volcanopele/status/1778946227700457728?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 13, 2024</a></blockquote>
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These images, as per Mashable, have been processed to remove noise and distortion. This, the publication reports, was done by both professional and amateur image processors, some of whom work for NASA or related space research programmes.&nbsp;

<h2>Jupiter's Io and the&nbsp;Juno probe&nbsp;</h2>

As per NASA, Jupiter's rocky moon Io is the "most volcanically active world in the solar system, with hundreds of volcanoes, some erupting lava fountains dozens of miles (or kilometres) high".

This, as per the US space agency, is due to a "tug-of-war between Jupiter's powerful gravity and smaller but precisely timed pulls from two neighbouring moons that orbit farther from Jupiter – Europa and Ganymede."

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/technology/us-space-force-readies-for-first-of-its-kind-military-exercise-in-earth-orbit-711464">US Space Force readies for first-of-its-kind military exercise in Earth orbit</a>

Because of the constant volcanism and intense radiation, Io, which is a bit larger than Earth's moon, is an "unlikely destination for life". It is also the third largest of Jupiter's moons.

NASA's Juno spacecraft has been probing "beneath the dense, forbidding clouds encircling the giant planet" since it arrived there in 2016.&nbsp;

The spacecraft which is the first orbiter to peer so closely at Io has conducted around 60 flybys, of which the closest ones were made recently on&nbsp;Dec&nbsp;30, 2023, and Feb&nbsp;3, 2024.

(With inputs from agencies)

Erupting volcanoes are fascinating, and the countless volcano models children make in schools are a testament to that. But, if volcanoes on the Earth are so intriguing, how much more amazing would it be to be able to watch volcanoes erupting somewhere out in space?

Erupting volcanoes are fascinating, and the countless volcano models children make in schools are a testament to that. But, if volcanoes on the Earth are so intriguing, how much more amazing would it be to be able to watch volcanoes erupting somewhere out in space? This is now possible, all thanks to NASA's Juno. The probe which last week conducted a planned flyby near Jupiter's moon 'Io' has managed to capture fascinating visuals of the alien world teeming with volcanoes. Also read | More complex than we thought? Cosmologists set to question the standards of how we view the universe Astonishing visuals from space Taking to X, Jason Perry, a professional photographer for CaSSIS, HiRISE, and Io Volcano Observer shared an animated GIF showing 13 images from "Juno's encounter with Io this week!". Have a look here: Animated gif showing 13 of the images from Juno's encounter with Io this week! Great views of Pele, Xihe, and Io's south polar region. pic.twitter.com/rh8zWfJiiI — Jason Perry (@volcanopele) April 13, 2024 × These images, as per Mashable, have been processed to remove noise and distortion. This, the publication reports, was done by both professional and amateur image processors, some of whom work for NASA or related space research programmes. Jupiter's Io and the Juno probe As per NASA, Jupiter's rocky moon Io is the "most volcanically active world in the solar system, with hundreds of volcanoes, some erupting lava fountains dozens of miles (or kilometres) high". This, as per the US space agency, is due to a "tug-of-war between Jupiter's powerful gravity and smaller but precisely timed pulls from two neighbouring moons that orbit farther from Jupiter – Europa and Ganymede." Also read | US Space Force readies for first-of-its-kind military exercise in Earth orbit Because of the constant volcanism and intense radiation, Io, which is a bit larger than Earth's moon, is an "unlikely destination for life". It is also the third largest of Jupiter's moons. NASA's Juno spacecraft has been probing "beneath the dense, forbidding clouds encircling the giant planet" since it arrived there in 2016. The spacecraft which is the first orbiter to peer so closely at Io has conducted around 60 flybys, of which the closest ones were made recently on Dec 30, 2023, and Feb 3, 2024. (With inputs from agencies)

NASA's Juno captures closest views of erupting volcanoes on Jupiter's moon Io. Watch!

The Juno spacecraft of the&nbsp;National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has shattered the false notions about the origin of zodiacal light or 'false dawns'.

The zodiacal light is sunlight reflected by dust particles between the Sun and Earth and is best seen close to sunrise or sunset. As its name implies, this celestial glow appears in the ring of constellations known as the zodiac. These are found along the ecliptic, which is the eastward apparent “path” that the Sun traces across Earth’s sky.

Astronomers have believed that zodiacal light&nbsp;is&nbsp;brought into the inner solar system by a few of the asteroid and comet families that venture in from afar.

An instrument aboard the Juno spacecraft serendipitously detected dust particles slamming into the spacecraft during its journey from Earth to Jupiter.

The impacts provided important clues to the origin and orbital evolution of the dust, resolving some mysterious variations of the zodiacal light. The discovery has big implications.

<div class="videoWrapper trancodeVideo"><iframe allowfullscreen="" autoplay="1" class="includeVideo" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.wionews.com/videos/perseverance-searches-for-life-on-mars-369682/embed" style="width:100%;max-width:560px;" width="560"></iframe></div>

John Leif Jørgensen, a professor at the Technical University of Denmark, said&nbsp;&nbsp;“I never thought we’d be looking for interplanetary dust.”

He designed&nbsp;the four star trackers that are part of Juno’s magnetometer investigation. These onboard cameras snap photos of the sky every quarter of a second to determine Juno’s orientation in space by recognizing star patterns in its images — an engineering task essential to the magnetometer’s accuracy.&nbsp;

It wasn’t until the researchers calculated the apparent size and velocity of the objects in the images that they finally realized something: Dust grains had smashed into Juno at about 10,000 miles (or 16,000 kilometers) per hour, chipping off submillimeter pieces. “Even though we’re talking about objects with only a tiny bit of mass, they pack a mean punch,” said Jack Connerney, Juno’s magnetometer investigation lead, and the mission’s deputy principal investigator, who’s based at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

As it turned out, the spray of debris was coming from Juno’s expansive solar panels — the biggest and most sensitive unintended dust detector ever built.

<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iUBHRAJzIg0" width="560"></iframe>

“Each piece of debris we tracked records the impact of an interplanetary dust particle, allowing us to compile a distribution of dust along Juno’s path,” Connerney said. Juno launched in 2011. After a deep-space manoeuvre in the asteroid belt in 2012, it returned to the inner solar system for an Earth gravity assist in 2013, which catapulted the spacecraft towards Jupiter.

Connerney and Jørgensen noticed that the majority of dust impacts were recorded between Earth and the asteroid belt, with gaps in the distribution related to the influence of Jupiter’s gravity.

According to scientists, this was a radical revelation. Before now, scientists have been unable to measure the distribution of these dust particles in space. Dedicated dust detectors have had limited collection areas and thus limited sensitivity to a sparse population of dust.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/science/astronomers-detect-best-place-and-time-to-live-in-milky-way-368901">Astronomers detect best place and time to live in Milky Way</a>

They mostly count the more abundant and much smaller dust particles from interstellar space. In comparison, Juno’s expansive solar panels have 1,000 times more collection area than most dust detectors.

Juno scientists determined that the dust cloud ends at Earth because Earth’s gravity sucks up all the dust that gets near it. “That’s the dust we see as zodiacal light,” Jørgensen said.

As for the outer edge, around 2 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun (1 AU is the distance between Earth and the Sun), it ends just beyond Mars. At that point, the scientists report, the influence of Jupiter’s gravity acts as a barrier, preventing dust particles from crossing from the inner solar system into deep space. This same phenomenon, known as orbital resonance, also works the other way, where it blocks dust originating in deep space from passing into the inner solar system.

The profound influence of the gravity barrier indicates that the dust particles are in a nearly circular orbit around the Sun, Jørgensen said. “And the only object we know of in almost circular orbit around 2 AU is Mars, so the natural thought is that Mars is a source of this dust,” he said.

“The distribution of dust that we measure better be consistent with the variation of zodiacal light that has been observed,” Connerney said. The researchers developed a computer model to predict the light reflected by the dust cloud, dispersed by gravitational interaction with Jupiter that scatters the dust into a thicker disk. The scattering depends only on two quantities: the dust inclination to the ecliptic and its orbital eccentricity. When the researchers plugged in the orbital elements of Mars, the distribution accurately predicted the tell-tale signature of the variation of zodiacal light near the ecliptic. “That is, in my view, a confirmation that we know exactly how these particles are orbiting in our solar system,” Connerney said, “and where they originate.”

While there is good evidence now that Mars, the dustiest planet we know of, is the source of the zodiacal light, Jørgensen and his colleagues cannot yet explain how the dust could have escaped the grip of Martian gravity. They hope other scientists will help them.

In the meantime, the researchers note that finding the true distribution and density of dust particles in the solar system will help engineers design spacecraft materials that can better withstand dust impacts. Knowing the precise distribution of dust may also guide the design of flight paths for future spacecraft in order to avoid the highest concentration of particles. Tiny particles traveling at such high velocities can gouge up to 1,000 times their mass from a spacecraft.

Juno’s solar arrays escaped harm because the solar cells are well protected against impact on the back&nbsp;or dark&nbsp;side of the array by the support structure.

The Juno spacecraft of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has shattered the false notions about the origin of zodiacal light or 'false dawns'.

The Juno spacecraft of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has shattered the false notions about the origin of zodiacal light or 'false dawns'. The zodiacal light is sunlight reflected by dust particles between the Sun and Earth and is best seen close to sunrise or sunset. As its name implies, this celestial glow appears in the ring of constellations known as the zodiac. These are found along the ecliptic, which is the eastward apparent “path” that the Sun traces across Earth’s sky. Astronomers have believed that zodiacal light is brought into the inner solar system by a few of the asteroid and comet families that venture in from afar. An instrument aboard the Juno spacecraft serendipitously detected dust particles slamming into the spacecraft during its journey from Earth to Jupiter. The impacts provided important clues to the origin and orbital evolution of the dust, resolving some mysterious variations of the zodiacal light. The discovery has big implications. John Leif Jørgensen, a professor at the Technical University of Denmark, said “I never thought we’d be looking for interplanetary dust.” He designed the four star trackers that are part of Juno’s magnetometer investigation. These onboard cameras snap photos of the sky every quarter of a second to determine Juno’s orientation in space by recognizing star patterns in its images — an engineering task essential to the magnetometer’s accuracy. It wasn’t until the researchers calculated the apparent size and velocity of the objects in the images that they finally realized something: Dust grains had smashed into Juno at about 10,000 miles (or 16,000 kilometers) per hour, chipping off submillimeter pieces. “Even though we’re talking about objects with only a tiny bit of mass, they pack a mean punch,” said Jack Connerney, Juno’s magnetometer investigation lead, and the mission’s deputy principal investigator, who’s based at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. As it turned out, the spray of debris was coming from Juno’s expansive solar panels — the biggest and most sensitive unintended dust detector ever built. “Each piece of debris we tracked records the impact of an interplanetary dust particle, allowing us to compile a distribution of dust along Juno’s path,” Connerney said. Juno launched in 2011. After a deep-space manoeuvre in the asteroid belt in 2012, it returned to the inner solar system for an Earth gravity assist in 2013, which catapulted the spacecraft towards Jupiter. Connerney and Jørgensen noticed that the majority of dust impacts were recorded between Earth and the asteroid belt, with gaps in the distribution related to the influence of Jupiter’s gravity. According to scientists, this was a radical revelation. Before now, scientists have been unable to measure the distribution of these dust particles in space. Dedicated dust detectors have had limited collection areas and thus limited sensitivity to a sparse population of dust. Also read: Astronomers detect best place and time to live in Milky Way They mostly count the more abundant and much smaller dust particles from interstellar space. In comparison, Juno’s expansive solar panels have 1,000 times more collection area than most dust detectors. Juno scientists determined that the dust cloud ends at Earth because Earth’s gravity sucks up all the dust that gets near it. “That’s the dust we see as zodiacal light,” Jørgensen said. As for the outer edge, around 2 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun (1 AU is the distance between Earth and the Sun), it ends just beyond Mars. At that point, the scientists report, the influence of Jupiter’s gravity acts as a barrier, preventing dust particles from crossing from the inner solar system into deep space. This same phenomenon, known as orbital resonance, also works the other way, where it blocks dust originating in deep space from passing into the inner solar system. The profound influence of the gravity barrier indicates that the dust particles are in a nearly circular orbit around the Sun, Jørgensen said. “And the only object we know of in almost circular orbit around 2 AU is Mars, so the natural thought is that Mars is a source of this dust,” he said. “The distribution of dust that we measure better be consistent with the variation of zodiacal light that has been observed,” Connerney said. The researchers developed a computer model to predict the light reflected by the dust cloud, dispersed by gravitational interaction with Jupiter that scatters the dust into a thicker disk. The scattering depends only on two quantities: the dust inclination to the ecliptic and its orbital eccentricity. When the researchers plugged in the orbital elements of Mars, the distribution accurately predicted the tell-tale signature of the variation of zodiacal light near the ecliptic. “That is, in my view, a confirmation that we know exactly how these particles are orbiting in our solar system,” Connerney said, “and where they originate.” While there is good evidence now that Mars, the dustiest planet we know of, is the source of the zodiacal light, Jørgensen and his colleagues cannot yet explain how the dust could have escaped the grip of Martian gravity. They hope other scientists will help them. In the meantime, the researchers note that finding the true distribution and density of dust particles in the solar system will help engineers design spacecraft materials that can better withstand dust impacts. Knowing the precise distribution of dust may also guide the design of flight paths for future spacecraft in order to avoid the highest concentration of particles. Tiny particles traveling at such high velocities can gouge up to 1,000 times their mass from a spacecraft. Juno’s solar arrays escaped harm because the solar cells are well protected against impact on the back or dark side of the array by the support structure.

NASA's Juno probe solves mystery of 'false dawns'

NASA&#39;s Juno spacecraft hurtled closer toward Jupiter on Friday, headed for a July 4 leap into polar orbit around the solar system&#39;s largest planet to analyse how it formed and helped set the stage for life on Earth. 
 
During a 20-month study, Juno is expected to circle the gas giant in 37 egg-shaped orbits to measure microwaves radiating from inside the planet&#39;s thick atmosphere, map its massive magnetic field and conduct other experiments. 
 
Scientists are particularly keen to learn how much water Jupiter contains, a key to unlocking the origins of the largest celestial body in the solar system after the sun. 
 
Jupiter currently orbits the sun at a distance about five times farther away than Earth, but it may have formed in a different location and migrated, gravitationally elbowing aside other planets along the way. 
 
&quot;Something happens that allows a star to be born and then afterwards the planets ... That eventually leads to us,&quot; said the mission&#39;s lead scientist, Scott Bolton, a space physicist with the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. 
 
More than half of the material left over from the formation of the sun 4.6 billion years ago ended up in Jupiter, which has a circumference nearly 11 times bigger than Earth&#39;s and is itself orbited by 67 known moons. 
 
Jupiter is made almost entirely of hydrogen and helium, the two simplest and most abundant elements in the universe, but the planet&#39;s enormous mass generates such high pressure that the materials behave in unexpected and unknown ways. 
 
&quot;We&#39;re working in a new environment,&quot; said Frances Bagenal, a planetary scientist with the University of Colorado in Boulder. &quot;We don&#39;t know the physics of how things work at these high pressures.&rdquo; 
 
The Juno probe is named for the ancient Roman goddess, who was the wife and sister of Jupiter, the mythological king of gods, and had the power to see through clouds. 
 
From vantage points as close as 3,000 miles (4,800 kilometres) from the planet&#39;s cloud tops, the spacecraft is to not only search for water but assess whether Jupiter possesses a dense core beneath its atmosphere. 
 
&quot;We&#39;re about to embark on an incredible journey,&quot; Bolton said during a news conference from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. 
 
Juno, careening toward Jupiter at more than 160,000 miles per hour (25,750 kph), over 200 times the speed of sound, has been programmed to fire its braking rocket at 11:18 pm EDT on Monday (0318 GMT on Tuesday) in order to slow its course. 
 
The rocket must be precisely positioned and burn for 35 minutes to reduce its speed enough to allow it to be captured by Jupiter&#39;s gravity and swing into orbit. 
 
&quot;If that doesn&#39;t all go just right, we fly past Jupiter,&quot; Bolton said. 
 
Only one other spacecraft, NASA&#39;s Galileo space probe, has orbited Jupiter, circling the planet for eight years before colliding with the gas giant in 2003. The first spacecraft to fly past Jupiter was NASA&#39;s Pioneer 10 in 1973. 
 
Juno, which will arrive at Jupiter after a journey of five years and nearly two billion miles (3.2 billion kilometres), is expected to end its mission as the Galileo probe did, crashing itself into the planet to avoid possible contamination of Jupiter&#39;s ocean-bearing moon, Europa, with any microbes carried by the spacecraft. 
 
(Reuters)

Scientists want to know how much water the planet contains to learn about the origins of the solar system's second largest celestial body

NASA's Juno spacecraft hurtled closer toward Jupiter on Friday, headed for a July 4 leap into polar orbit around the solar system's largest planet to analyse how it formed and helped set the stage for life on Earth. During a 20-month study, Juno is expected to circle the gas giant in 37 egg-shaped orbits to measure microwaves radiating from inside the planet's thick atmosphere, map its massive magnetic field and conduct other experiments. Scientists are particularly keen to learn how much water Jupiter contains, a key to unlocking the origins of the largest celestial body in the solar system after the sun. Jupiter currently orbits the sun at a distance about five times farther away than Earth, but it may have formed in a different location and migrated, gravitationally elbowing aside other planets along the way. "Something happens that allows a star to be born and then afterwards the planets ... That eventually leads to us," said the mission's lead scientist, Scott Bolton, a space physicist with the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. More than half of the material left over from the formation of the sun 4.6 billion years ago ended up in Jupiter, which has a circumference nearly 11 times bigger than Earth's and is itself orbited by 67 known moons. Jupiter is made almost entirely of hydrogen and helium, the two simplest and most abundant elements in the universe, but the planet's enormous mass generates such high pressure that the materials behave in unexpected and unknown ways. "We're working in a new environment," said Frances Bagenal, a planetary scientist with the University of Colorado in Boulder. "We don't know the physics of how things work at these high pressures.” The Juno probe is named for the ancient Roman goddess, who was the wife and sister of Jupiter, the mythological king of gods, and had the power to see through clouds. From vantage points as close as 3,000 miles (4,800 kilometres) from the planet's cloud tops, the spacecraft is to not only search for water but assess whether Jupiter possesses a dense core beneath its atmosphere. "We're about to embark on an incredible journey," Bolton said during a news conference from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Juno, careening toward Jupiter at more than 160,000 miles per hour (25,750 kph), over 200 times the speed of sound, has been programmed to fire its braking rocket at 11:18 pm EDT on Monday (0318 GMT on Tuesday) in order to slow its course. The rocket must be precisely positioned and burn for 35 minutes to reduce its speed enough to allow it to be captured by Jupiter's gravity and swing into orbit. "If that doesn't all go just right, we fly past Jupiter," Bolton said. Only one other spacecraft, NASA's Galileo space probe, has orbited Jupiter, circling the planet for eight years before colliding with the gas giant in 2003. The first spacecraft to fly past Jupiter was NASA's Pioneer 10 in 1973. Juno, which will arrive at Jupiter after a journey of five years and nearly two billion miles (3.2 billion kilometres), is expected to end its mission as the Galileo probe did, crashing itself into the planet to avoid possible contamination of Jupiter's ocean-bearing moon, Europa, with any microbes carried by the spacecraft. (Reuters)

NASA space probe to lift the veil on Jupiter

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NASA's Juno captures closest views of erupting volcanoes on Jupiter's moon Io. Watch!

NASA's Juno probe solves mystery of 'false dawns'

NASA space probe to lift the veil on Jupiter