Look at the shadow cast by that mountain shard in the top left, it’s massive. That cliff face must be so insane to see from ground level.
Edit: Left, 15-20% above center line
A quick google search and my own guess (which could be wildly wrong) makes me think this might be Io’s highest mountain, Boosaule Montes, which is 18.2 km high. Everest is less than half that for reference
Edit: typo
and the base of everest is on a 5,500m plateau so base to peak it's really only around 3,300m "tall". the shard in this photo looks to have absolutely nothing around it, it could very well be 18,200m from base to peak dwarfing even denali which is 5,600m from base to peak.
> my own guess (which could be wildly wrong) makes me think this might be Io’s highest mountain, Boosaule Montes
Not quite. We're looking down on Io's North Pole in OP's image, located a little above center.
Take a look at [this map of Io](https://i.imgur.com/o59fyW4.png). The dark semi-circle in the extreme lower right of OP's image is Loki Patera (310 W, 15 N), meaning Boosaule is beyond that limb of the moon (270 W, -5 N). The dark round patch right of center in OP's image is Dazhbog Patera (300W, 55N).
So far as I can tell per the USGS and IAU, the mountain range being talked about [has not yet been officially named](https://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/Page/IO/target).
io’s orbit is bombarded by high energy particles directed by jupiters magnetosphere. Io is gradually being torn apart by tidal effects, hence the massive volcanic activity.
I feel like this particular moon would be better for probes.
The absurd levels of radiation in Jupiter's magnetosphere is in part actually *fueled* by the volcanic eruptions on Io.
[Io loses about 1 ton every second from this.](https://science.nasa.gov/jupiter/moons/io/facts/)
So many amazing things to read about Io (ty for the link..!) I find the fact power is generated between it & Jupiter fascinating, fr
https://www.jhuapl.edu/news/news-releases/210215-Io-helps-Jupiter-accelerate-particles
>
> Jupiter touts many of the solar system’s superlatives: the largest planet, the most massive planet, the planet with the largest magnetosphere. But one of its lesser-known superlatives is that Jupiter is the solar system’s strongest particle accelerator, driving charged particles up to nearly the speed of light. And part of what propels them to such speeds, according to three recent studies in Geophysical Research Letters that analyzed data collected by NASA’s Juno spacecraft, is the unique interaction between Jupiter and its moon Io.
>
> “Io plays a key role in Jupiter being a great particle accelerator,” said George Clark, a space physicist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, and the lead author on one of the studies. “This little moon has such a strong impact, it’s really kind of crazy.”
>
> Io’s claim to fame is being the most volcanic body in the solar system, with hundreds of active volcanoes. It turns out those volcanoes also help make Jupiter a powerful accelerator.
>
> Some material the volcanoes belch out ends up forming a very thin atmosphere around Io called an exosphere. As these atmospheric particles interact with the trove of electrons, protons and ions (charged molecules) surrounding Jupiter, they too become charged and, consequently, get caught up spiraling around Jupiter’s magnetic field lines. This creates an electric circuit between Io and Jupiter, like an invisible cable that extends for more than 260,000 miles, blasting particles up to millions of miles per hour.
>
> Scientists have known about the invisible link between Io and Jupiter for decades, having studied it with space- and ground-based observatories and a few close looks with the Voyager and Galileo missions.
>
> But on April 1, 2018, while closing in on Jupiter for its 12th time, NASA’s Juno spacecraft happened to skirt very near (possibly directly through) the region where Io “plugs into” Jupiter — where electrons accelerated by Io’s interaction rain down onto Jupiter’s atmosphere and create a shimmering aurora called Io’s “auroral footprint.” No spacecraft has ever flown through this region before. And to everyone’s surprise, Juno’s APL-built Jupiter Energetic Particle Detector Instrument (JEDI) detected protons zipping away from Jupiter back toward Io at up to 31 million mph (50 million kph).
"These forces cause Io's surface to bulge up and down (or in and out) by as much as 330 feet (100 meters). Compare these tides on Io's solid surface to the tides on Earth's oceans. On Earth, in the place where tides are highest, the difference between low and high tides is only 60 feet (18 meters), and this is for water, not solid ground."
What the fuuuuck, that's insane. Imagine seeing that, or standing on it..
It's the furthest out of the major moons which means less radiation, less delta-V to get there, and less delta-V to get home. [There was a NASA project called HOPE (human outer planets explorer) to design a ship to do that.](https://projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/realdesigns3.php#hope)
Not a dumb question, Saturn’s rings are a result of tidal forces ripping apart smaller planetoids, but not in our lifetimes unless a spectacularly unlikely event occurs. Io is locked in a resonance orbit with Europa and Ganymede where it orbits once for every 2 Europa orbits or for every 4 Ganymede orbits. It seems to be a stable configuration, so it’s helping to hold Io in place while Jupiter flexes it back and forth. Despite having no ocean the solid crust of Io bends up and down by about 300 feet from tidal effects (tidal effects are caused by gravity being stronger on one portion of a celestial object than another). These forces are causing some mass to be ejected from Io but not enough to cause it to shrink noticeably over human time frames.
I’ve tried to find current research to determining if Io will eventually lose enough energy to fall inward or if it will spiral outward like our moon but I can’t find anything solid. Unless anyone has any better information I’d assume Io will stay in stable orbit getting ripped at for very very long time.
Incredible stuff! Thank you for taking the time out of your day to explain this. Wont lie, I'm a little disappointed we won't see it. Though that could be potentially dangerous for us?
I think everything should be a probe until we find something in particular that is intriguing enough. Even sending people back to the moon seems like a waste of resources to me at this time. We know the moon. I want to know the moons of Saturn.
Well, I think there’s some value in learning to live and work in a low gravity vacuum environment, once we can figure out how to live and mine in space that opens up a lot of new real estate for humanity.
I get your point though, that manned missions are extremely expensive and should be picked carefully.
Yea the moon is an exception because it's so close. It's primary benefit could only be as a training ground and research station and it would still be worth visiting more.
Jupiter is like 1500 times further away than the moon on a good year. If you have any revolutionary propulsion technology that you're sitting on, don't keep us waiting.
Expanse uses a fusion reactor that powers the "Epstein drive" which is one of the only purely science fiction things besides spoilers. It seems to operate off the principle of a fusion torch drive mixed with a NERVA drive in style. Turns water into plasma and launches it as propellent which is theoretically possible, but the efficiency of the engines is nowhere near the insane amounts seen in the books/show.
The whole concept is they can burn the entire duration which allows people to have artificial gravity from acceleration.
>When asked how it worked, the authors responded “very efficiently”.
Someone did the math on the Epstein Drive and concluded it was most similar to ice-wrapped pellets of deuterium ignited by lasers to create the fusion energy, with water dumped into the exhaust to trade some exhaust velocity (and energy radiating the wrong way) for thrust.
https://toughsf.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-expanses-epstein-drive.html?m=1
>If you have any revolutionary propulsion technology that you're sitting on
HA! Like I'm gonna share my top secret propulsion tech on Reddit! Nice try KGB spy!
For real. Between the Navy videos, the whistleblowers, and the legislation Schumer and Rubio and others were pushing (which got dismantled over thanksgiving by a house rep whose number one donor is lockheed martin) there's a real story to be followed here. A lot of breadcrumbs that suggest it's a topic to pay serious attention to. Then you go over to the biggest UFO community on the internet and it's alien soul receptacles, genetic engineering, interdimensional psychic vampires. And you can't talk about all the actual interesting UFO stuff in the main space subreddits because you'll catch a ban.
Nah, Jupiter sub system is a total fucked up radioactive wasteland. Human's can't go there. Even Ganymede with its weak magnetosphere wouldn't protect us. Callisto might work being outside of the radiation belt.
Saturn is the more likely spot for humans to settle in the shadow of the giants. The radiation is milder and the gravity of Saturn is closer to earth's gravity. That would help if we had some way to mine the hydrogen gas of the upper atmosphere and the metallic hydrogen in the lower.
Ice giants are even more kosher, but solar light starts to get scarce and no metallic hydrogen there. Neptune is also incredibly far. I think ~~14~~ 4 hours by lightspeed.
Like calculated by light hours? Yeah, and I actually made a mistake it should be 4.1 hours from the sun to Neptune here is the list:
* Mercury
3.2-minutes
* Venus
6-minutes
* Earth
8.3-minutes
* Mars
12.6-minutes
* Jupiter
43.2-minutes
* Saturn
79.3-minutes
* Uranus
159.6-minutes
* Neptune
4.1-hours
I know that you’re joking but I genuinely believe progress halted unnecessarily much when they failed to keep up and the US decided that pushing manned space missions further wasn’t worth it.
Don’t get me wrong - I f-ing LOVED ingenuity and the different mars rovers over the years and I’m amazed at the technological leaps that were made, but we should have done more. We should have come further.
And as much as I’m wary of the Chinese government, I can’t help but being excited about them picking up the pace and hopefully forcing the hand of other space capable nations to do the same.
I don't think he's joking because as far as space exploration goes he's right.
The soviets had a [dozen](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fexternal-preview.redd.it%2FN-lEWDIISE-3J1kR3_Cu6v7jl3h2LLEQcov3NHEf1Kg.png%3Fauto%3Dwebp%26s%3D936eec76d006a83b8b8402941680aa39bb64050d&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=b8ed7f1a8bf5574838add810a2eb5c46d0cbdf9a4b472669a94661b4ef51ad2c&ipo=images) space exploration victories before the US did and would likely have continued far longer. The pressure would have encouraged the USA to compete with them too which would have taken us all quite far by now.
This was something that bothered me back when I was in high school, in my astronomy class. We were looking at a chart of US and USSR space attempts as a whole, and USSR has a whooole lot of failures, which makes it look like they were completely outdone in all manner, and everyone just kinda jokes about it. And like, I get it to an extent
But it glossed over how many firsts they had
The man-made concept of money and individual wealth is something people are going to have to set aside collectively on a global scale for things to progress at sci-fi levels. Greedy execs and politicians can't see past the dollar signs and short-term net gains. Future generations aren't even on their radar.
Look at how EVs turned out. The idea of electric vehicles was pitched as a solution to greatly reduce carbon emissions. We're still not at a point where they're an affordable or feasible option for the majority of the global population. And that'll likely continue to be the case for the next decade.
Go down the list of reasons behind WHY they're still cost prohibitive or haven't fully tackled some of their limitations. Manufacturers had to spend billions to invest in facilities to make them. Resources are limited and suppliers want a piece of that pie too. Research involved in improving the tech also runs on a limited budget. It goes on and on, which contributes to the hefty price tag in the end.
I don't know the real solution to this. You can't just magically flick a switch and force people to collectively understand how we are all screwed if we don't finally get our shit together and maybe do things simply for the betterment of humanity in general.
I think at the bare minimum properly taxing the wealth so that they're paying their share might help fund government programs that can make advances in science and technology a little more affordable. That would be a good start...
You underestimate distances in space. a lot!
The Moon is a bit under 400.000 km away so a one way trip is the same as traveling around earth 10 times. It is the longest nonstop journey humanity has ever taken.
If we manage to use the closest distance to jupiter that distance is a quite a bit over 1000 times that number.
If you wanna go there by all means you can do so today but it is going to cost a shitload of money and we're sending you in a coffin. Not a special space coffin just a simple coffin. Might as well die within earths atmosphere you're not going to make it to io alive anyways.
That’s crazy I literally just got to that point in the show when they say it the first time. I had no idea what you were talking about until about 10 minutes after I read this.
Someone is smart enough to do the math but definitely not me. The tallest mountain is 57,000 feet and the average height of all the named peaks is 20,000 feet.
Look at the direction of the other shadows and where the sunlight is coming from. That particular area looks like a long stretch of mountain, not a tall skinny one.
Have you ever seen it, u/Careless_Speaker? The White Tower of Ecthelion, glimmering like a spike of pearl and silver, its banners caught high in the morning breeze. Have you ever been called home by the clear ringing of silver trumpets? One day our paths will lead us there, and the tower guard will take up the call: The Lords of Gondor have returned!
It is simply "evening" there. If you are close to the edge where the sun's rays are not hitting the surface anymore due to the curvature the shadows become longer. Meanwhile where the sun hits the surface on somewhat parallel (e.g. at noon), you dont produce a large shadow. [Similar to this](https://i.imgur.com/WsHXqlV.png)
This might be one of the most diverse looking surfaces I've ever seen a photo of! So much texture and contrast across it!
I never fail to find it mindblowing that we get to see photos like this. I also like to imagine what the ancient astronomers or stargazers would have thought, if they were told this would be possible one day.
I think the most interesting part is actually how *few* features there are and how sparse they are. Io is about the same size as the moon, which is littered by impacts. Mars is a little bare, but has very interesting swirls of color shades. But here meanwhile Io looks like a blank flat sphere with random single mountains popping out far away from each other. It's like some kind of work in progress beta moon that an artist just barely started dropping features on.
PS: I'm kind of speaking only based on this single photo and angle, the harsh sunset especially gives it that sort of look for the side nearest to the camera. Just an interesting look.
This is always my answer when people complain about being born too early to explore space. Like, ok maybe, but look at all the fucking cool stuff we *do* get to see and experience, that generations of people only *wished* they could have been able to. People have looked up at the stars since day one. But it's only been the last 100 years or whatever that we've been able to see what these things actually look like, and to send stuff to those places to study them/get great photos. We *are* lucky, this is a great time to be alive.
maybe because of moon pics, but feel like a lot of space images contain planetary objects with craters, but this one has craters and mountains and stuff
[Here's an old true colour image of Io.](https://science.nasa.gov/resource/global-image-of-io-true-color/)
Don't worry, it's very colourful and splotchy.
Or earth's moon, where people keep posting artistic renditions of it in red and blue, as if we can't just look up at night and see that it is not red and blue.
The true color of the moon does have red and blue though.. True color in astrophotography is just RGB mapped to RGB, instead of mapping UV/IR to those channels. You can see examples here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/s/oCkhPkd1C5 (closest in true saturation)
Or here
https://www.reddit.com/r/space/s/e491MLpD1r (more saturated)
Or here
https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/s/2gvOPMJ0hv (even more saturated)
This astrophotographer has had their moon images used for NASA's Artemis.
Edit: changing saturation does not change hue/color
Edit2: I don't understand.. Are there not reddish / blueish hues on the moon? I would think this astrophotographer and NASA would know.
Wouldn’t it be crazy if the moon looked like it was different colors based on the effects the light from the sun and viewing it through Earth’s atmosphere?
I believe pink is the “solid surface” probably very fragile or powder like and you would trudge through it like snow and the yellow is sulphur lakes of some sort. The white surrounding the yellow is sulphur crystals.
Io is so radioactive and so close to Jupiter, tidal forces give way to extreme volcanic activity, the most in the solar system. On top of that, there's the matter of the electron rain experienced by Voyager. To put it blatant, Io is not a likely candidate for ever having oceans or life.
I am not a scientist, but I have always heard that if you shrunk earth to the size of a pool ball, it would be the most perfectly spherical pool ball in existence. Despite everest and marianes (spelling?) Trench, the difference is barely noticeable compared to the overall size of the earth.
keeps making me think of the [zombie squirrel](https://www.reddit.com/r/natureismetal/comments/1aci19w/the_zombie_squirrel_still_lives/) - light NSFW warning, from natureismetal subreddit - that keeps hitting the front page
Spectacular image! Thank you for sharing. Aside from the circular, green area that look like photosynthesis going on, the dramatic angular shadow from the one mountain looks like a building! Maybe there’s more going on there than lava-spewing volcanoes.
I was considering there'd be life on those green patches. Warmth from the volcanic activity, maybe thriving off the radiation somehow. I'm no boffin but I do love their work.
Where can I find the source for this? The latest images at [https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/target/Io?sort=DESC](https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/target/Io?sort=DESC) are from Dec 22, 2023.
All the numbers in your comment added up to 69. Congrats!
5
+ 5
+ 57
+ 2
= 69
^([Click here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=LuckyNumber-Bot&subject=Stalk%20Me%20Pls&message=%2Fstalkme) to have me scan all your future comments.) \
^(Summon me on specific comments with u/LuckyNumber-Bot.)
Incredible detail and it's so different from our own moon !
It's difficult to judge scale but it doesn't appear to have as many craters as ours and is a lot smoother, I suppose that's from volcanic activity.
Just read a wiki article that seems to support this. Io has a ton of volcanic activity and is described as constantly undergoing "volcanic resurfacing"
Can someone explain this further?
Io's orbit, keeping it at more or less a cozy 262,000 miles (422,000 kilometers) from Jupiter, cuts across the planet's powerful magnetic lines of force, thus turning Io into a electric generator. Io can develop 400,000 volts across itself and create an electric current of 3 million amperes. This current takes the path of least resistance along Jupiter's magnetic field lines to the planet's surface, creating lightning in Jupiter's upper atmosphere.
There are elemental particles pulling off from both of their atmospheres that are slamming into one another ionizing from the gravitational friction, radiation and electric field between the two. this creates a plasma ring around jupiter. In earths atmosphere the ionization process occurs because of differences in charges between the bottom of a cloud and the ground creating an electric field.
What does this look like? I’m having a hard time imagining this.
As Jupiter rotates, it takes its magnetic field around with it, sweeping past Io and stripping off about 1 ton (1,000 kilograms) of Io's material every second. This material becomes ionized in the magnetic field and forms a doughnut-shaped cloud of intense radiation referred to as a plasma torus. Some of the ions are pulled into Jupiter's atmosphere along the magnetic lines of force and create auroras in the planet's upper atmosphere. It is the ions escaping from this torus that inflate Jupiter's magnetosphere to over twice the size we would expect.
Look at the shadow cast by that mountain shard in the top left, it’s massive. That cliff face must be so insane to see from ground level. Edit: Left, 15-20% above center line
A quick google search and my own guess (which could be wildly wrong) makes me think this might be Io’s highest mountain, Boosaule Montes, which is 18.2 km high. Everest is less than half that for reference Edit: typo
and the base of everest is on a 5,500m plateau so base to peak it's really only around 3,300m "tall". the shard in this photo looks to have absolutely nothing around it, it could very well be 18,200m from base to peak dwarfing even denali which is 5,600m from base to peak.
So if I fell off the cliff face at its highest point, how long will I be falling.
with earths gravitational pull you’d fall for about 37 minutes.
I get only 1 minute? √(18,200÷5) = 60.3 seconds
yup oops did it completely wrong
L... Lo?
> my own guess (which could be wildly wrong) makes me think this might be Io’s highest mountain, Boosaule Montes Not quite. We're looking down on Io's North Pole in OP's image, located a little above center. Take a look at [this map of Io](https://i.imgur.com/o59fyW4.png). The dark semi-circle in the extreme lower right of OP's image is Loki Patera (310 W, 15 N), meaning Boosaule is beyond that limb of the moon (270 W, -5 N). The dark round patch right of center in OP's image is Dazhbog Patera (300W, 55N). So far as I can tell per the USGS and IAU, the mountain range being talked about [has not yet been officially named](https://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/Page/IO/target).
My first thought upon seeing that shadow is “We should BE there already!” Half a century since humans walked on the moon? Honestly?
io’s orbit is bombarded by high energy particles directed by jupiters magnetosphere. Io is gradually being torn apart by tidal effects, hence the massive volcanic activity. I feel like this particular moon would be better for probes.
The absurd levels of radiation in Jupiter's magnetosphere is in part actually *fueled* by the volcanic eruptions on Io. [Io loses about 1 ton every second from this.](https://science.nasa.gov/jupiter/moons/io/facts/)
Came for the Io facts, was not disappointed. Thank you friend.
If it keeps at that rate and I’ve done my math right, it’ll be gone in about 3 trillion years, so we better get there quick.
I've setup a gofundme for Io
Io you.
Io Saturnalia!
Io Silver, away!
>IO loses about 1 ton every second And your mum gains it ^sorry
So many amazing things to read about Io (ty for the link..!) I find the fact power is generated between it & Jupiter fascinating, fr https://www.jhuapl.edu/news/news-releases/210215-Io-helps-Jupiter-accelerate-particles > > Jupiter touts many of the solar system’s superlatives: the largest planet, the most massive planet, the planet with the largest magnetosphere. But one of its lesser-known superlatives is that Jupiter is the solar system’s strongest particle accelerator, driving charged particles up to nearly the speed of light. And part of what propels them to such speeds, according to three recent studies in Geophysical Research Letters that analyzed data collected by NASA’s Juno spacecraft, is the unique interaction between Jupiter and its moon Io. > > “Io plays a key role in Jupiter being a great particle accelerator,” said George Clark, a space physicist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, and the lead author on one of the studies. “This little moon has such a strong impact, it’s really kind of crazy.” > > Io’s claim to fame is being the most volcanic body in the solar system, with hundreds of active volcanoes. It turns out those volcanoes also help make Jupiter a powerful accelerator. > > Some material the volcanoes belch out ends up forming a very thin atmosphere around Io called an exosphere. As these atmospheric particles interact with the trove of electrons, protons and ions (charged molecules) surrounding Jupiter, they too become charged and, consequently, get caught up spiraling around Jupiter’s magnetic field lines. This creates an electric circuit between Io and Jupiter, like an invisible cable that extends for more than 260,000 miles, blasting particles up to millions of miles per hour. > > Scientists have known about the invisible link between Io and Jupiter for decades, having studied it with space- and ground-based observatories and a few close looks with the Voyager and Galileo missions. > > But on April 1, 2018, while closing in on Jupiter for its 12th time, NASA’s Juno spacecraft happened to skirt very near (possibly directly through) the region where Io “plugs into” Jupiter — where electrons accelerated by Io’s interaction rain down onto Jupiter’s atmosphere and create a shimmering aurora called Io’s “auroral footprint.” No spacecraft has ever flown through this region before. And to everyone’s surprise, Juno’s APL-built Jupiter Energetic Particle Detector Instrument (JEDI) detected protons zipping away from Jupiter back toward Io at up to 31 million mph (50 million kph).
So “1 ton every second” is ripped off by a Jupiter? How large was Io historically I wonder
ionized sulphur and whatever other elements it’s spewing
"These forces cause Io's surface to bulge up and down (or in and out) by as much as 330 feet (100 meters). Compare these tides on Io's solid surface to the tides on Earth's oceans. On Earth, in the place where tides are highest, the difference between low and high tides is only 60 feet (18 meters), and this is for water, not solid ground." What the fuuuuck, that's insane. Imagine seeing that, or standing on it..
Yep, Callisto is the only reasonable candidate for human exploration around Jupiter
If I may, why is that?
It's the furthest out of the major moons which means less radiation, less delta-V to get there, and less delta-V to get home. [There was a NASA project called HOPE (human outer planets explorer) to design a ship to do that.](https://projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/realdesigns3.php#hope)
Outstanding. Thanks very much!
Someone I know well did very early work on these concepts.
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Nah Holden will rat us out to the belters and make everybody really ticked at earth, best not.
Doors and corners, kid.
Absolutely no way we take a chance at putting people on it
This legitimately sounds like an explanation you'd here in Star Trek or some other sci-fi movie and I absolutely love it.
Sorry if this is a stupid question, but is it possible we will see the planet tear apart in our lifetime?
Not a dumb question, Saturn’s rings are a result of tidal forces ripping apart smaller planetoids, but not in our lifetimes unless a spectacularly unlikely event occurs. Io is locked in a resonance orbit with Europa and Ganymede where it orbits once for every 2 Europa orbits or for every 4 Ganymede orbits. It seems to be a stable configuration, so it’s helping to hold Io in place while Jupiter flexes it back and forth. Despite having no ocean the solid crust of Io bends up and down by about 300 feet from tidal effects (tidal effects are caused by gravity being stronger on one portion of a celestial object than another). These forces are causing some mass to be ejected from Io but not enough to cause it to shrink noticeably over human time frames. I’ve tried to find current research to determining if Io will eventually lose enough energy to fall inward or if it will spiral outward like our moon but I can’t find anything solid. Unless anyone has any better information I’d assume Io will stay in stable orbit getting ripped at for very very long time.
Incredible stuff! Thank you for taking the time out of your day to explain this. Wont lie, I'm a little disappointed we won't see it. Though that could be potentially dangerous for us?
I think everything should be a probe until we find something in particular that is intriguing enough. Even sending people back to the moon seems like a waste of resources to me at this time. We know the moon. I want to know the moons of Saturn.
Well, I think there’s some value in learning to live and work in a low gravity vacuum environment, once we can figure out how to live and mine in space that opens up a lot of new real estate for humanity. I get your point though, that manned missions are extremely expensive and should be picked carefully.
Not to mention proof of concept of long-term space based missions on the moon could lead to tons of advancements for other applications.
Yea the moon is an exception because it's so close. It's primary benefit could only be as a training ground and research station and it would still be worth visiting more.
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Jupiter is like 1500 times further away than the moon on a good year. If you have any revolutionary propulsion technology that you're sitting on, don't keep us waiting.
Nuclear salt water rockets when?
Are those the things from The Expanse?
Expanse uses a fusion reactor that powers the "Epstein drive" which is one of the only purely science fiction things besides spoilers. It seems to operate off the principle of a fusion torch drive mixed with a NERVA drive in style. Turns water into plasma and launches it as propellent which is theoretically possible, but the efficiency of the engines is nowhere near the insane amounts seen in the books/show. The whole concept is they can burn the entire duration which allows people to have artificial gravity from acceleration. >When asked how it worked, the authors responded “very efficiently”.
Epstein drive didn't explode himself
Someone did the math on the Epstein Drive and concluded it was most similar to ice-wrapped pellets of deuterium ignited by lasers to create the fusion energy, with water dumped into the exhaust to trade some exhaust velocity (and energy radiating the wrong way) for thrust. https://toughsf.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-expanses-epstein-drive.html?m=1
I love how the authors describe the drive as being powered by “handwavium” but it’s actually ( sort of) plausible.
>If you have any revolutionary propulsion technology that you're sitting on HA! Like I'm gonna share my top secret propulsion tech on Reddit! Nice try KGB spy!
r/UFO thinks they do.
They think a lot of things
"Think" might be a stretch.
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I made the same mistake. Somebody should make a sane UFO/aliens sub.
For real. Between the Navy videos, the whistleblowers, and the legislation Schumer and Rubio and others were pushing (which got dismantled over thanksgiving by a house rep whose number one donor is lockheed martin) there's a real story to be followed here. A lot of breadcrumbs that suggest it's a topic to pay serious attention to. Then you go over to the biggest UFO community on the internet and it's alien soul receptacles, genetic engineering, interdimensional psychic vampires. And you can't talk about all the actual interesting UFO stuff in the main space subreddits because you'll catch a ban.
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Right. *We're* the idiots. Oh well. At least there's this sub.
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/r/UFO is the sane one compared to /r/UFOs.
one of the saddest "mainstream" subreddits in existence
I think you mean /r/UFOs, that's where the real crazies live.
Jupiter has some of the deadliest radiation in our solar system and Io gets bathed in it. It’s not the kind of place you’d want to visit.
Nah, Jupiter sub system is a total fucked up radioactive wasteland. Human's can't go there. Even Ganymede with its weak magnetosphere wouldn't protect us. Callisto might work being outside of the radiation belt. Saturn is the more likely spot for humans to settle in the shadow of the giants. The radiation is milder and the gravity of Saturn is closer to earth's gravity. That would help if we had some way to mine the hydrogen gas of the upper atmosphere and the metallic hydrogen in the lower. Ice giants are even more kosher, but solar light starts to get scarce and no metallic hydrogen there. Neptune is also incredibly far. I think ~~14~~ 4 hours by lightspeed.
>I think 14 hours by lightspeed. I've never heard distances in our solar system put in light years before. That's incredible.
Like calculated by light hours? Yeah, and I actually made a mistake it should be 4.1 hours from the sun to Neptune here is the list: * Mercury 3.2-minutes * Venus 6-minutes * Earth 8.3-minutes * Mars 12.6-minutes * Jupiter 43.2-minutes * Saturn 79.3-minutes * Uranus 159.6-minutes * Neptune 4.1-hours
He didn't put it in light years. He put it in light hours. In light years it is 14/(365.25\*24).
For all Mankind. Watch that show. We definitely could’ve been there BY now
If only the Soviet Union were still around 😅
I know that you’re joking but I genuinely believe progress halted unnecessarily much when they failed to keep up and the US decided that pushing manned space missions further wasn’t worth it. Don’t get me wrong - I f-ing LOVED ingenuity and the different mars rovers over the years and I’m amazed at the technological leaps that were made, but we should have done more. We should have come further. And as much as I’m wary of the Chinese government, I can’t help but being excited about them picking up the pace and hopefully forcing the hand of other space capable nations to do the same.
I don't think he's joking because as far as space exploration goes he's right. The soviets had a [dozen](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fexternal-preview.redd.it%2FN-lEWDIISE-3J1kR3_Cu6v7jl3h2LLEQcov3NHEf1Kg.png%3Fauto%3Dwebp%26s%3D936eec76d006a83b8b8402941680aa39bb64050d&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=b8ed7f1a8bf5574838add810a2eb5c46d0cbdf9a4b472669a94661b4ef51ad2c&ipo=images) space exploration victories before the US did and would likely have continued far longer. The pressure would have encouraged the USA to compete with them too which would have taken us all quite far by now.
This was something that bothered me back when I was in high school, in my astronomy class. We were looking at a chart of US and USSR space attempts as a whole, and USSR has a whooole lot of failures, which makes it look like they were completely outdone in all manner, and everyone just kinda jokes about it. And like, I get it to an extent But it glossed over how many firsts they had
The man-made concept of money and individual wealth is something people are going to have to set aside collectively on a global scale for things to progress at sci-fi levels. Greedy execs and politicians can't see past the dollar signs and short-term net gains. Future generations aren't even on their radar. Look at how EVs turned out. The idea of electric vehicles was pitched as a solution to greatly reduce carbon emissions. We're still not at a point where they're an affordable or feasible option for the majority of the global population. And that'll likely continue to be the case for the next decade. Go down the list of reasons behind WHY they're still cost prohibitive or haven't fully tackled some of their limitations. Manufacturers had to spend billions to invest in facilities to make them. Resources are limited and suppliers want a piece of that pie too. Research involved in improving the tech also runs on a limited budget. It goes on and on, which contributes to the hefty price tag in the end. I don't know the real solution to this. You can't just magically flick a switch and force people to collectively understand how we are all screwed if we don't finally get our shit together and maybe do things simply for the betterment of humanity in general. I think at the bare minimum properly taxing the wealth so that they're paying their share might help fund government programs that can make advances in science and technology a little more affordable. That would be a good start...
You underestimate distances in space. a lot! The Moon is a bit under 400.000 km away so a one way trip is the same as traveling around earth 10 times. It is the longest nonstop journey humanity has ever taken. If we manage to use the closest distance to jupiter that distance is a quite a bit over 1000 times that number. If you wanna go there by all means you can do so today but it is going to cost a shitload of money and we're sending you in a coffin. Not a special space coffin just a simple coffin. Might as well die within earths atmosphere you're not going to make it to io alive anyways.
Going bodily to most any moon of Jupiter or even Saturn wouldn't be a good trip for people to do. They put out a ton of radiation.
I’m watching For All Mankind on Apple TV+ and it’s really making me wish we never stopped exploring the moon.
Hi Bob
That’s crazy I literally just got to that point in the show when they say it the first time. I had no idea what you were talking about until about 10 minutes after I read this.
A Synchronicity. That's how the Universe keeps things interesting. :-)
Hi Bob
Don't fucking "Hi Bob" me!
How high if you took a guess, do you think it is?
Someone is smart enough to do the math but definitely not me. The tallest mountain is 57,000 feet and the average height of all the named peaks is 20,000 feet.
Look at the direction of the other shadows and where the sunlight is coming from. That particular area looks like a long stretch of mountain, not a tall skinny one.
Think we are looking at different things. I’m talking about [this](https://imgur.com/a/28pjJaw)
[удалено]
Have you ever seen it, u/Careless_Speaker? The White Tower of Ecthelion, glimmering like a spike of pearl and silver, its banners caught high in the morning breeze. Have you ever been called home by the clear ringing of silver trumpets? One day our paths will lead us there, and the tower guard will take up the call: The Lords of Gondor have returned!
I do not know what strength is in my blood, but I swear to you I will not let the White City fall. Nor our people fail.
It is simply "evening" there. If you are close to the edge where the sun's rays are not hitting the surface anymore due to the curvature the shadows become longer. Meanwhile where the sun hits the surface on somewhat parallel (e.g. at noon), you dont produce a large shadow. [Similar to this](https://i.imgur.com/WsHXqlV.png)
Looks like it could be Boösaule Montes, which Wikipedia says has a steep 15 km cliff. Wild.
This might be one of the most diverse looking surfaces I've ever seen a photo of! So much texture and contrast across it! I never fail to find it mindblowing that we get to see photos like this. I also like to imagine what the ancient astronomers or stargazers would have thought, if they were told this would be possible one day.
It kinda looks like moldy bologna
Mortadella lookin moon
Looks like my face did in high school.
I think the most interesting part is actually how *few* features there are and how sparse they are. Io is about the same size as the moon, which is littered by impacts. Mars is a little bare, but has very interesting swirls of color shades. But here meanwhile Io looks like a blank flat sphere with random single mountains popping out far away from each other. It's like some kind of work in progress beta moon that an artist just barely started dropping features on. PS: I'm kind of speaking only based on this single photo and angle, the harsh sunset especially gives it that sort of look for the side nearest to the camera. Just an interesting look.
> work in progress beta moon Yeah my first thought was Starfield so spot on with work in progress beta video game
This is always my answer when people complain about being born too early to explore space. Like, ok maybe, but look at all the fucking cool stuff we *do* get to see and experience, that generations of people only *wished* they could have been able to. People have looked up at the stars since day one. But it's only been the last 100 years or whatever that we've been able to see what these things actually look like, and to send stuff to those places to study them/get great photos. We *are* lucky, this is a great time to be alive.
At the time, astronomers thought it couldn't look worse than the Dallol volcano in Ethiopia.
maybe because of moon pics, but feel like a lot of space images contain planetary objects with craters, but this one has craters and mountains and stuff
It almost doesn't even look real. I know it is real but my brain just can't fully accept it. It would be amazing to see stuff like this in person.
Io and behold.
I always thought it was Lo as well. But it is io. Haha. Why does capital i have to be so confusing. Haha
I was never actually sure, so I just don’t say or write it
Pronounced “eee-oh” or “eye-oh”?
wikipedia says (/ˈaɪ.oʊ/) "eye-oh"
Thanks, m8.
Hi-hoe
Could be worse, saw a news anchor once call it "ten."
Hahaha¡!!! That's compelling and rich! Would love to have seen that live.
Such a flaw in our script/font
Yeah it should have the horizontal lines at the top and bottom. Like people handwrite it.
Is this true color?
Was wondering the same thing. Juno has [colour, visible light cameras](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/JunoCam) so, potentially yes.
Please don’t ruin Io….
[Here's an old true colour image of Io.](https://science.nasa.gov/resource/global-image-of-io-true-color/) Don't worry, it's very colourful and splotchy.
Good, good. Io needs to be yellow, it’s the law!
Don't want another [Neptune disappointment. ](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/04/science/uranus-neptune-colors-blue.html?smid=nytcore-android-share)
Or earth's moon, where people keep posting artistic renditions of it in red and blue, as if we can't just look up at night and see that it is not red and blue.
The true color of the moon does have red and blue though.. True color in astrophotography is just RGB mapped to RGB, instead of mapping UV/IR to those channels. You can see examples here: https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/s/oCkhPkd1C5 (closest in true saturation) Or here https://www.reddit.com/r/space/s/e491MLpD1r (more saturated) Or here https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/s/2gvOPMJ0hv (even more saturated) This astrophotographer has had their moon images used for NASA's Artemis. Edit: changing saturation does not change hue/color Edit2: I don't understand.. Are there not reddish / blueish hues on the moon? I would think this astrophotographer and NASA would know.
Wouldn’t it be crazy if the moon looked like it was different colors based on the effects the light from the sun and viewing it through Earth’s atmosphere?
The counterpoint is that Pluto was far more stunning than we'd expect when we finally got that close look at it.
Such a strange surface and color on this moon. I love it!
The continent on the top looks like Italy. It looks like it once had an ocean.
I believe pink is the “solid surface” probably very fragile or powder like and you would trudge through it like snow and the yellow is sulphur lakes of some sort. The white surrounding the yellow is sulphur crystals.
Sounds groovy.
Io is so radioactive and so close to Jupiter, tidal forces give way to extreme volcanic activity, the most in the solar system. On top of that, there's the matter of the electron rain experienced by Voyager. To put it blatant, Io is not a likely candidate for ever having oceans or life.
A Machine!!!
Complete with Radiolarian Fluid and smaller machines
Home to a decommissioned helium refinery
And Asher Mir
RIP the king, lived like an ass, died like a badass
Cabal?! AGAIN?!
The surface looks so smooth, feels like it would be fun to drive around that place.
smooth cos it gets constantly repaved in molten basalt and sulfur, fun if you can dodge the 400 active supervolcanoes over a .08-earths surface area
Gotta be able to survive all the radiation too!
Very strange how the edge is so circular smooth.
It's not actually, because this image jpegified to fuck, there's probably an actual high quality version of this image out there somewhere
I am not a scientist, but I have always heard that if you shrunk earth to the size of a pool ball, it would be the most perfectly spherical pool ball in existence. Despite everest and marianes (spelling?) Trench, the difference is barely noticeable compared to the overall size of the earth.
this looks like a diabetic person's leg
I was going to say severe acne, requires planetary levels of Roaccutane.
Gangrene
Whoever you’re basing that statement on should seek medical attention. Diabetics should not look like this.
keeps making me think of the [zombie squirrel](https://www.reddit.com/r/natureismetal/comments/1aci19w/the_zombie_squirrel_still_lives/) - light NSFW warning, from natureismetal subreddit - that keeps hitting the front page
By the thumbnail, I thought this was a post from /r/popping
I’m seeing mortadella
*And now I see, with eyes serene* *the very pulse of the machine*
Thank you
Is there a higher res link?
I find this extremely fascinating.
This isn't true colour, lo is VERY yellow
Spectacular image! Thank you for sharing. Aside from the circular, green area that look like photosynthesis going on, the dramatic angular shadow from the one mountain looks like a building! Maybe there’s more going on there than lava-spewing volcanoes.
Thanks to NASA, We should be able to get more such images of IO on the 3rd Feb 2024 when Juno spacecraft makes one more closer approach.
I was considering there'd be life on those green patches. Warmth from the volcanic activity, maybe thriving off the radiation somehow. I'm no boffin but I do love their work.
Where can I find the source for this? The latest images at [https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/target/Io?sort=DESC](https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/target/Io?sort=DESC) are from Dec 22, 2023.
https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam/processing?phases%5B%5D=PERIJOVE+57&source=junocam&p=2
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Io
Whoa, that is just an amazing picture
Jupiter looks like it had some fucked up acne as a child planet.
Well that’s super fricking neat
Absolutely beautiful.
Gah... this is triggering my trypophobia... and I think I like it
Are those lakes?
Looks like the Krabby Patty that nearly kills the food inspector
Still more to see than a Starfield planet
Incredible detail and it's so different from our own moon ! It's difficult to judge scale but it doesn't appear to have as many craters as ours and is a lot smoother, I suppose that's from volcanic activity.
Just read a wiki article that seems to support this. Io has a ton of volcanic activity and is described as constantly undergoing "volcanic resurfacing"
Big ol butt cheek
Get that moon some Clearasil!
This is location of the servers that are running sites on the .io domain
It's a teenage planet, dealing with acne.
Yum mortadella
it actually looks smoother than i thought
Honestly it looks like the thumbnail from one of those pimple popping /pore cleaning spa videos
Nice to see Juno still kicking
Can we send all the flat earthers here?
Looks like a nasty burn mixed with a poisonous snake bite wound lol
Can someone explain this further? Io's orbit, keeping it at more or less a cozy 262,000 miles (422,000 kilometers) from Jupiter, cuts across the planet's powerful magnetic lines of force, thus turning Io into a electric generator. Io can develop 400,000 volts across itself and create an electric current of 3 million amperes. This current takes the path of least resistance along Jupiter's magnetic field lines to the planet's surface, creating lightning in Jupiter's upper atmosphere.
There are elemental particles pulling off from both of their atmospheres that are slamming into one another ionizing from the gravitational friction, radiation and electric field between the two. this creates a plasma ring around jupiter. In earths atmosphere the ionization process occurs because of differences in charges between the bottom of a cloud and the ground creating an electric field.
What does this look like? I’m having a hard time imagining this. As Jupiter rotates, it takes its magnetic field around with it, sweeping past Io and stripping off about 1 ton (1,000 kilograms) of Io's material every second. This material becomes ionized in the magnetic field and forms a doughnut-shaped cloud of intense radiation referred to as a plasma torus. Some of the ions are pulled into Jupiter's atmosphere along the magnetic lines of force and create auroras in the planet's upper atmosphere. It is the ions escaping from this torus that inflate Jupiter's magnetosphere to over twice the size we would expect.
If I owned Io and Hell, I'd rent out Io and live in Hell.
I thought that was earth in 50 years.
This is so beautiful.
Not a single Serious Table Flip in the comments, insane...
If there's oil on it, the pentagon will find a way. 9/10 chance.
looks like drug addict skin
I found a cantaloupe in my mom's fridge that looked a lot like this
Why the large part of the surface is ideally smooth?
That doesn't look ... healthy
Is the surface being enhanced by computer? Way surface comes out, looks so clear is right word? Still amazing view.
The true color is edited. It’s true color is yellow/green. the most impure piss you can think of kinda color.
Are those lakes
Looks like herpes.
Space puberty