Jupiter’s moon Io is the most volcanically active world in the Solar System. It has hundreds of volcanoes and volcanic activity 25 times that of Earth. However, according to NASA and European Space Agency researchers, the concentrations of volcanic activity are significantly displaced from where they are expected to be based on models that predict how the moon’s interior is heated.
Observations made by NASA’s New Horizon project in 2007 had the vantage point of capturing the giant plume from Io’s Tvashtar volcano. The debris were ejected to 330 km (250 miles) above the surface of the moon.
Masubi and Zal erupted alongside Tvashtar, ejecting three plumes high above. Loki, a virtual lake of lava and Boosaule Mons, which at 18 km (11 miles) is the highest mountain on Io and one of the highest mountains in the solar system can all be seen together in the five images captured by LORRI (Long Range Reconnaissance Imager) on the New Horizons spacecraft.
