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Remember that old sci-fi story, "A Pail of Air" by Fritz Leiber, where the World got stolen away from Sol by a dead star whizzing through, and everything froze solid and the Earth's whole atmosphere snowed out of the sky? New research from the Southwest Research Institute shows that exactly that process is happening on Io, except on a daily basis.

Well, not the stolen-by-a-rogue-star office. None of that yet. But for two hours out of every mean solar day on Io, when Jupiter eclipses the Lord's day and its warmth, the moon'southward surface temperature plummets from the positively summery -235F to a frigid -270F. The influx of solar energy stops. And Io's atmosphere of sulfur dioxide falters, contracts, and and then snows right out of its sky. When the solar eclipse ends, sublimation of all that And sotwo snow pumps upwards the atmosphere once again. Information technology'south a "abiding wheel of collapse and repair."

Jupiter IO Artistic Concept FINAL

Io may exist the real-world equivalent of Dante Alighieri's nethermost circle of Hell. Its surface is a brutally common cold, dry place, covered in xanthous sulfur and rimed with crystalline sulfur dioxide frost. Racked with constant eruptions, Io is the about volcanically active place in our entire solar arrangement. Tidal heating drives the volcanism: There's so much orbital momentum being flung effectually as Io orbits Jupiter that the tidal forces keep the moon'southward interior hot, even as the awe-inspiring tidal swell cracks the crust and lets basalt lava spout hundreds of miles into the heaven. And the high-energy radiation belt in Io's path ways that every day the moon is bombarded with about 36 Sv equivalent. For reference, the lifetime acceptable dose for a human is well under 1 Sv.

Every aspect of this moon is punishing in the extreme, merely nobody knew its atmosphere worked quite like this. Before this study, we hadn't actually even managed to make any direct observations of Io'due south temper while it was in eclipse. What made information technology possible now was the combination of the huge Gemini Due north telescope and the TEXES system, which can see the atmosphere using thermal imaging when visible-spectrum instruments were blinded by Jupiter's glare. "Though Io's hyperactive volcanoes are the ultimate source of the SO2, sunlight controls the atmospheric pressure level," said John Spencer, coauthor. "Nosotros've long suspected this, only tin finally watch it happen."

Now that Juno has arrived in orbit, there should exist a steady stream of data forthcoming on Jupiter and its moons. Instrumentation on Juno makes it possible to get much clearer readings on the gravitational fields, electromagnetic activeness, and concrete environment around Jupiter, so we'll know more in the near hereafter. In the meantime, go read some good sci-fi!