A University of Iowa physicist isn’t exactly on Cloud Nine — more like Moon Seven. Dr. Louis Frank is on the research team reviewing data transmissions being beamed back from the spacecraft Galileo which is orbiting Io, one of the moons of the planet Jupiter.
Galileo was launched from a U-S space shuttle in 1989 and arrived at Jupiter six years and two-point-three billion miles later. Dr. Frank says Galileo is zipping along at 120 miles an hour, roughly 300 miles above the surface of the giant planet’s moon. That’s why it was such a surprise to have the craft run into the gas and ash plume from the Ionian volcano. He says they got some strange readings and gases that he says are really amazing.
In addition to the numerical data being sent back to earth from the probe, there are also detailed color photographs. They show the volcano enshrouded in yellow, orange and purple-white clouds. Dr. Frank says the volcanic plume is spewing ash and gases well over 300 miles high.
The surface of Io is about one-thousand degrees and the only things “living” there are volcanoes. Another moon of Jupiter, Europa, has people “itching” to get there, according to Frank, as it appears to have ice and water and -could- support life. To see some of the photos of Io and to learn more, surf to: “www.jpl.nasa.gov/jupiterflyby”.
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