Io's Lava Lake, Loki, Imaged in Unprecedented Detail to Reveal New Features

Io is the innermost of the four moons of Jupiter and is also the most geologically active body in our solar system. Now, scientists have taken a closer look at the largest of its volcanic features, named Loki, on its surface.

Loki is actually a volcanic depression that's essentially a lake of lava. Called a patera, a denser lava crust solidifies on top of a lava lake and then episodically sinks into the lake. This causes a raise in the thermal emissions that have been regularly observed from Earth.

In this latest effort, the researchers used the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) in order to produce images of the feature. The scientists were able to look at Loki Patera, revealing details that have never before been seen from Earth.

"We combine the light from two very large mirrors coherently so that they become a single, extremely large mirror," said Al Conrad, the lead author of the new study, in a news release. "In this way, for the first time we can measure the brightness coming from different regions within the lake."

The new sharp images can reveal small features on a larger object. This reveals a bit more about Io, which allows scientists to study its activity in more detail.

"Two of the volcanic features are at newly active locations," said Katherine de Kleer, a graduate student involved in the research. "They are located in a region called the Colchis Regio, where an enormous eruption took place just a few months earlier, and may represent the aftermath of that eruption. The high resolution of the LBTI allows us to resolve the residual activity in this region into specific active sites, which could be lava flows or nearby eruptions."

The findings are published in The Astronomical Journal.

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