Io's BILLIONS of Years of Volcanoes
Researchers now say that the volcanoes on Jupiter's moon Io have been erupting for billions of years. They date back to the early days of our solar system, when our sun, Earth, Jupiter, Io and the rest of our sun's family were born. The conclusions are based on new analysis of sulfur in Io’s thin atmosphere. That makes sense, because sulfur plays a key role on Io’s surface and in its atmosphere. Some of Io’s volcanoes spew sulfur and sulfur dioxide in great plumes extending miles above Io’s surface. That's why, if you could stand on Io without a spacesuit, you’d find it smells like rotten eggs. Using the ALMA telescope in Chile, the research team analyzed isotopes of Io’s atmospheric sulfur. They looked at the way Io’s atmosphere CHANGES. That is, collisions with charged particles in Jupiter’s magnetic field strip away Io's already-thin atmosphere. The lighter sulfur isotope at the top of the atmosphere - called sulfur-32 - gets depleted faster. By calculating how much sulfur-32 is missing, the researchers were able to determine how long Io has been volcanically active.
Producer and host Deborah Byrd: http://earthsky.org/author/deborahbyrd
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