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Study suggests Io's volcanoes have been active for 4.5 billion years

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2024-04-20 02:30:02

This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:

Locations used for local model fitting. Images of (A–B) the leading and (C–D) trailing hemisphere in example emission lines of (A,C) 32SO2 and (B,D) Na35Cl. Red circles indicate the apertures used for our tests. Credit: Science (2024). DOI: 10.1126/science.adj0625

A team of geologists and planetary scientists from the California Institute of Technology, the University of California Santa Cruz, New York University, and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center reports evidence that Io's volcanic activity has been ongoing since the beginning of the solar system. In their study, published in the journal Science, the group studied sulfur isotopes in Io's atmosphere to determine how long the moon has been volcanically active.

Prior research has shown that the solar system is approximately 4.5 billion years old and that Jupiter's moon, Io, is the most volcanically active body in the solar system. But until now, researchers did not know how long the moon has been active. To find out, the research team used data from ALMA to analyze the gases present in Io's atmosphere.