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found on compuserve's news page today:
Jupiter's Io: Multicolored Volcano
You haven't seen a volcano until you've seen one on Jupiter's moon, Io. The most volcanically active body in the solar system, it's a land of multicolored lava erupting constantly in showers and fountains and clouds of poison gas. The Galileo spacecraft has captured it all in incredible close-up photos showing astronomers oceans of soupy lava, molten rock spewing from superheated geysers, and vast sulfur plains that look like fields of yellow snow, punctuated with streaks of green and spots of vivid red. By the standards of Earth's weather, there's never a pleasant day on Io. Temperatures drop to minus 280 degrees--except in the midst of a lava lake where the heat can reach almost 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. "This is the greatest temperature range of anything in the solar system," said Alfred S. McEwen, a planetary geologist at the University of Arizona, Tucson, and first author of a report appearing Friday in the journal Science. Io is 2,000 miles in diameter, which is about the size of the Earth's moon. McEwen said it is clear that Io is melting and remelting itself, time after time after time. "We estimate that Io has been completely melted at least 400 times--and perhaps as many as 4,000 times--over the age of the solar system," he said.
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"it's easier to stay out than get out"
Jupiter's Io: Multicolored Volcano
You haven't seen a volcano until you've seen one on Jupiter's moon, Io. The most volcanically active body in the solar system, it's a land of multicolored lava erupting constantly in showers and fountains and clouds of poison gas. The Galileo spacecraft has captured it all in incredible close-up photos showing astronomers oceans of soupy lava, molten rock spewing from superheated geysers, and vast sulfur plains that look like fields of yellow snow, punctuated with streaks of green and spots of vivid red. By the standards of Earth's weather, there's never a pleasant day on Io. Temperatures drop to minus 280 degrees--except in the midst of a lava lake where the heat can reach almost 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. "This is the greatest temperature range of anything in the solar system," said Alfred S. McEwen, a planetary geologist at the University of Arizona, Tucson, and first author of a report appearing Friday in the journal Science. Io is 2,000 miles in diameter, which is about the size of the Earth's moon. McEwen said it is clear that Io is melting and remelting itself, time after time after time. "We estimate that Io has been completely melted at least 400 times--and perhaps as many as 4,000 times--over the age of the solar system," he said.
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"it's easier to stay out than get out"
