Since the New Horizons Jupiter Encounter thread is already getting pretty long, I decided to create a thread dedicated to New Horizons' observations of the most interesting object in the solar system: Io. Info on upcoming observations comes from the jupiter_timeline_static.xls document john_s posted, and the preview images are from Celestia (note that each image is scaled so that the pixel scale is ~correct, and represents a smaller FOV than LORRI)
Today, February 24, New Horizons conducts three observations of Io with the LORRI camera as well some observations of Io's atmosphere with ALICE. These observations have the lowest phase angle for Io of the entire encounter. Phase angle continues to increase as NH approaches Jupiter and Io.
Jason, in case you didn't see it, here's the brand new image of Io from Hubble that http://planetary.org/blog/article/00000874/:
Cool, certainly looks like it could be Tvashtar. Given the viewing geometry, there is a slightly better candidate in an unnamed patera at 61N, 143 W, but given that it was only seen as a hot spot once, Tvashtar would be the better candidate.
More Hubble images now down- the Tvashtar(?) plume continues to be active through at least February 22nd, so there's a good chance that it will be active during the flyby too. Hubble only sees the plume in the ultraviolet, so it's not a sure thing that we'll see it at longer wavelengths with New Horizons, but I think the chances are quite good, particularly after closest approach when high phase angles will make it more visible.
That's a good point. Given the phase angles of these early images, it maybe rather difficult to resolve most of the plumes on Io.
Today, February 25, New Horizons conducts three monitoring observations of Io with the LORRI camera focusing on the trailing hemisphere, as well some observations of Io's atmosphere with ALICE and an observation of Io while it is in eclipse with the LORRI, ALICE, and RALPH instruments. As noted in the post above, these observations won't be returned until next month.
Please keep in mind that these are simulations of the LORRI frames from Celestia, not the LORRI frames themselves...
Woohoo, 2 new Io images!
A little experiment on you guys- we posted the images about 40 minutes ago and were wondering how long it would take someone to notice them and spot the plume! We'll be doing a proper press release image in a few hours.
John.
John seems to have a little too much time on his hands, wouldn't you say, gents?
Yeah, he'd better get that press release done before us guys scoop you!
Damn. Looks like two of them. Didn't notice Tvashtar popping off too!
Umm, where do you see the second plume?
Hi eveyone. This is my first post to UMSF. Here is my take on "plume finding" on Io.
I thought I saw one on the center limb. Didn't realize that the Tvashtar plume was clearly visible in your pic.
Good eyes, exploitcorporations! There is a very small plume on the center limb (around 9 o'clock)- that's Prometheus.
John.
That's spectacular and one can even easily discern the plume's umbrella-like shape. This is not a surprise because with extreme contrast enhancement plumes are visible in some of the low-phase Voyager 1 clear filter images of Io (for example C1636826.IMQ) despite Voyager 1's more primitive camera.
Makes me wonder what the Voyager 1 Jupiter encounter would have been like had the Internet and powerful computers been common back then and if the image release policy was MER/Cassini/NH-like. One thing is certain: The plumes would have been discovered *before* the Io flyby.
Are those a couple on the terminator, too?
Nope, those are mountains on the terminator
Knowing the viewing and lighting geometry or the *exact* time the image was obtained would be lovely - then I could make a hi-res computer rendering to check what these features near the terminator are...
EDIT: Didn't see John's reply (these are mountains) before I wrote this.
Note the double ring around Masubi!
GREAT IMAGES, john_s!!!! This is such a good day, for other spacecraft images as well...
Great pics, thanks for putting them up so quickly. Hoping for more the coming days
Quick question for John about the lecture you'll be giving tomorrow:
Will it be recorded and put on the web ?
Those mountains look from the map like they might be part of the big complex to the east and northeast of Ukko Patera about 10W 40N.
Great catch on the 9 c'clock plume, Exploitcorporations! I wrote it off as scattered light/topography, but a little sharpening brings out the nebulosity of the feature nicely.
sorry, but I have to add another wow! happy days
Looks like Prometheus shows up okay in the short exposure too, waaaay stretched:
Sorry I have been slacking off on the image previews. I've been sick the last couple of days and today has been extremely hectic at work!
I'll try to get the last two days work up tonight. Nice work everyone on these images that showed up this morning. I've only had a short amount of time to look at them unfortunately.
Wahoo! Great images everyone. You could have a NH pic of the day for the next few months as the rest of them stream down!
"Someone should subtract this image from the New Horizons image in photoshop to spot the biggest surface changes."
What, like this?
It's a good idea, but Io looks so different in different fliters that it's no use unless the filter matches exactly. However, this is a first look at the question.
A is the big plume deposit - that does look different between old and new images. B is a smaller but real change. There are lots of smaller changes, but they get messed up by the filter issues. Wait for the real data - then it will be possible to do something.
Phil
I'm wondering if the big new streak pointing southwest in the lower right quadrant of the new photo is new, or if it just doesn't show up in the low-res chunk of the composite image that happens to be there.
Interesting ratio, Phil. Looks like something big happened at Shango Patera
Here's a processed image from both exposures, with color data from the rendered view. Hope this helps in identifying changes. At least is a nice new Io image!
http://img45.imageshack.us/my.php?image=io2gw7.jpg
Some changes are visible :-)
The map that Bjorn presents includes some Voyager data as well, so some of the changes seen between NH and this simulated view may actually be changes that occured between Galileo and Voyager. Check out this view from Galileo:
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/gallery/missionPhotos/pages/022707_1.html is the aforementioned press release.
While trying to match Bjorn's rendered view to the LORRI image, I notice the right hand side (near the terminator) features are way off while the left hand side fits perfectly. It's as though at a single longitude someone ripped off the texture and misplaced it?
http://m1.freeshare.us/view/?128fs3457633.gif
Yesterday, February 26, New Horizons conducts one monitoring observation with the LORRI camera focusing on the leading hemisphere, two "HiRes" observations with LORRI and RALPH instruments focusing on the leading and anti-Jovian hemisphere, as well some observations of Io's atmosphere with ALICE during a stellar occultation.
Please keep in mind that these are simulations of the LORRI frames from Celestia, not the LORRI frames themselves...with one exception
I know. I just wanted to bring that up because I am sure someone will mention the change around Kanehekili, which was something we saw with Galileo.
Today, February 27, New Horizons conducts three, high-resolution mapping observations with LORRI and RALPH and an eclipse monitoring observation with LORRI, RALPH, and ALICE. The observations today focus on Io's anti-Jovian and trailing hemispheres.
Please keep in mind that these are simulations of the LORRI frames from Celestia, not the LORRI frames themselves...with one exception
All I can say is WWW!!!!!!! (WOW WHATTA WEEK And thank goodness for the internet).
Io AND Titan ..... what a strange solar system we have met...... can't wait for the rest of New Horizon's data
............... cna't wait for Pluto/Charon...................
Craig
I'm surprised that the reference images of Io are still from Voyager rather than Galileo. I realize that Galileo returned only a heartbreakingly small fraction of the high-resolution images of which it was capable, but I would have thought that it repeatedly covered Io at better than Voyager resolution.
I found this http://members.fortunecity.com/volcanopele/penniesforpele/image_coverage.htm by volcanopele, which maps high resolution imaging, but doesn't address low resolution coverage.
TTT
EDIT: I thought some more about volcanopele's comments and put on my thinking cap. Io is gravitationally locked with Jupiter, and managing radiation levels was a challenge, so I guess most Galileo observations of Io took place outside Io's orbit and thus didn't cover the Jupiter facing hemisphere. [google, google] I'm not finding a handy orbit by orbit summary of the Galileo mission, the sort of thing that Emily does for us now. Did Galileo every observe the pro-jovian hemisphere of Io?
Here's a quick flicker gif comparing 4th rock's colorized New Horizon's shot with the Galileo image that volcanopele posted, for the much-resurfaced lower-right quadrant. Sorry for the low quality; I don't have time to reproject this right to get the geometry to match properly, so this is a quick-and-dirty affine transformation to get things close enough to compare. You can see that a lot of the changes we saw from Bjorn's composite are indeed new since Galileo. Using the http://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/images/io_comp_color.pdf, it seems that there have been serious changes in the Tarsus Regio, with big changes in the shapes of the Kaki-oi Patera and Masubi Fluctus. Cool!
Thought I would take a look into Shango, perhaps the most interesting new lava flow observed in this image.
Here is a view of Shango Patera from Galileo:
I'm not usually prone to sentimentality(snort), but this has been kind of a remarkable day. I just came to the realization that I will probably not see the volcanoes of Io again in my lifetime after this passage. In the same day, we have a spacecraft orbiting Saturn, three circling Mars and two on the surface, one passing the same and looking through its own sails, one bound for Mercury, one at Venus, and a host of spacecraft on the surface here waiting to set out for Luna and the asteroids and beyond. Seems sorta ridiculous to get ecstatic over two pictures of a flying pizza. I only have two people in my immediate world who even remotely(but very sympathetically) get it. Their eyes still glaze over after five minutes of babbling. Thanks john_s, Alan Stern, volcanopele, and everyone else here for the ride.
X's and Oh!s.
When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amore!
Seriously, I echo your sentiments on these past few days. A "you are there" view on a low Mars flyby, radar and optical views of previously unseen big lakes on Titan, a long anticipated revisit to a dynamic ever-changing Io, continually changing perspectives of the capes of Victoria crater, and the usual weekly offerings from HiRISE. The only comparison that comes to mind of so many new vistas is the Voyager flybys. And that was like going to a movie theatre of the 70's with only one screen. The past few days have been like going into all the auditoriums in a multiplex cinema.
And as Alex is the Reference Librarian, Jason is the Io Tour Guide. Thanks!
Not sure how close to C/A there will be other Io obs, but Io should appear just short of twice that size later today.
Doug
@Bjorn:
Interestingly, I ran into the same kind of alignment problem when trying to fit a Solar System Simulator image of Europa to the image. I'm starting to think LORRI's pixels aren't perfectly square.
I get differences on the order of >100 km in the equatorial direction for both Io and Europa. They can't be THAT oblate, can they?
From http://pirlwww.lpl.arizona.edu/HIIPS/Publications/hoppa_rotation/:
Now back to everyone's favorite moon...
Today, February 28, New Horizons makes its closest approach to Jupiter. There are six observations planned during this closest approach period, including 4 high resolution observation, 2 multi-spectral observations with LORRI, MVIC, and LEISA, and another stellar occultation.
Please keep in mind that these are simulations of the LORRI frames from Celestia, not the LORRI frames themselves...with one exception
on planetary radio last week, emily mentioned that the color images of the moons would be taken with jupitershine as the color cameras are set to sensitive for the low light at pluto. when do we get to see that? i suspect that there may be a real different look to them in jupiterlight.
volcanopele sort of adressed my question while i was posting it.
Not all is lost for good temporal coverage of Io's activity:
http://alamoana.keck.hawaii.edu/news/archive/io/index.html
Of course, we see "demonstration" images without a lot of regular follow-up. I don't know what it would take to get an Earth-based monitor of Io's activity working "around the clock", but it seems like it would be cheap compared to a mission, and since only one or two images would need to be taken per day, that leaves a lot of observation time for other targets.
Sure, the IR bands look weird, but they're better for watching the eruptions than visible light.
Webb will obviously excel for all of these purposes, but won't devote too much of its time to Io per se.
I think Earth-based observation without gaps remains an exciting possibility for Io, but I don't know whose money would pay for that.
it would seem so
damn, they should have been planning a jupiter probe ten years ago.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6406721.stm about the "massive 150 m, 495 ft high plume" on Io.
*sigh*
^^^ Mega LOL at that.
So I checked, and the BBC story said it was "Last Updated: Thursday, 1 March 2007, 08:24 GMT". I must've read it at almost exactly the time of the last update because http://news.bbc.co.uk/newswatch/ukfs/hi/newsid_3950000/newsid_3955200/3955223.stm (with a link to the original http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/gallery/missionPhotos/pages/022707_1.html) before making my post above at 8:30 am.
From the auto response:
Comments about our stories or services will be passed on to the appropriate editor. Factual or spelling errors will be corrected.
I wonder how long it will take to correct?
WOW!!! http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/gallery/missionPhotos/pages/030107.html!
Check out the third plume from Masubi at 6 o'clock, on the night side but reaching into sunlight!
Amazing, simply amazing.
COOL! Looks like their are two plume sources at Masubi.
Could we be seeing another plume at around 5:30 on the limb? There's some suspicious fuzzyness there.
Here all the visible plumes as well as my candidates for additional discrete plumes so far:
Good eyes.
With out a lat-lon grid this is difficult to assess, but I'll give it a stab. Let's assume for a moment that those bumps at 5 o'clock and 5:30 are real features (they might be, they might not be, difficult to say). The bump at 5:30 might be a plume associated with the volcano Aramazd Patera. The bump at 5 o'clock I think is the mountain Euboea Montes.
The 5:30 feature definitely makes for a more convincing case than the 5 o'clock one. You're probably right on it being a mountain. The Tvashtar plume either got a weird twist or there's also something else erupting there.
WOW!! This may be the most dramatic image I have ever seen of Io's plumes. And not unexpectedly, LORRI is very sensitive - does anyone know the strength of Jupitershine on Io's nightside as compared to sunlight at Pluto?
And here is a rendering showing the viewing geometry:
Hands up confession time... I've never really been that excited by Io (ducks to avoid slapping hand of volocanopele! ) but wow, that image is a stunner... the detail in that plume is just incredible.
Imagine what that would have been like in colour...
After closest approach, Io's quickly reduced to a waning crescent, allowing for longer exposures. While the resolution will rapidly diminish, we should be able to see numerous plumes crop up in scattered light and jupitershine. And likely with some (low resolution) color, too!
What a great week!
Great colorization, Stu!!!
Waiting for the full picture...
(sad to think we will not see such kind of images for a while, even if with the most advanced AO telescopes the particular geometry/lighting which make possible to see such volcanoes and mountains aren't possible from Earth!)
Here is a properly shaded version with exaggerated Jupitershine showing at higher resolution what's visible in the NH image. As discussed when the first Io images appeared some changes are visible.
In addition to a texture map I used a crude elevation map where I 'manually' painted in all of Io's major mountains using a table from a paper published in Icarus (or possibly JGR - I'm too lazy to check) several years ago as a guide. In addition to the table I also used various images as a guide. This now seems to have been more successful than I thought although various 'errors' can be spotted. Various mountains and mesas are obvious near the terminator.
For the mountain lovers, here's a graphic labeling all the mountains, except for the little guy northeast of Gish Bar Patera.
John S. has a nice new http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00000894/.
Thanks, VP! Io's mountain landforms are strangely more fascinating to me than the volcanoes, but I'm biased in favor of tall stuff.
Here's a link to Schenk and Hargitai's database project for anyone interested:
http://planetologia.elte.hu/io/index.phtml?nev=height
Nice work on the colorized pic, Stu!
edit: The lighting geometry on the Hi'iaka Montes looks very similar to that seen on Galileo's passes.
Here's another take on the changes at Masubi since Galileo. Comparison again is to the Galileo frame that volcanopele posted, flipping back and forth with the latest new LORRI frame. It looks like the current Masubi eruption is spewing primarily from what used to be that corner bend of Masubi Fluctus, with maybe some secondary plume(s) to the east.
Here's my take on colorization of the latest image, using Bjorn's view for hue and saturation and using the shorter exposure raw images to add some more detail in the overexposed sunny side:
You have to be kinda careful about colorizing high-phase Io images. Io's colors can change quite dramatically as you increase phase angle.
BTW, thanks for pointing out that the raw images are now up, including the shorter exposed images of Io.
Here is the 4 msec exposure image with Shango Patera pointed out:
is this above-average activity on Io or are there always 3 or more volcanoes activily spilling their guts? Amazing little moon
I'd say it's always pretty active. Maybe not huge volcanoes such as Pele or Tvashtar, but smaller ones, yes. And Io's not that small a moon either!
A "seven error game"
The image of the left comes from Celestia, I've desatrured it and darken the night side to have a good model comparison.
The differences are very small...
The feature that ustrax circled is actually a cosmic ray hit; it's only present in the 20 msec exposure.
HERE BE DRAGONS
Through your telescopes I am
Merely a star, a spark of light that slides
And glides round proud Jupiter;
One night here, the next night there,
Sometimes with company, often alone
On Joves left or right. One of four
Fluttering fireflies flitting silently through
The blush of the Red Spots glow.
But dare to approach me, to brave Jupiters
Cell-scything rays and youll crave
The safety of Earth once more, for I am a world
Where chemistry screams at the sky
And tears at your eyes, with claws
Of colour so sharp and so raw
Youll turn your face away and seek
The comfort of Callistos cratered smile.
For where my colder, older brother
And sister moons glow shivering shades of blue
And grey, my tortured face is painted hues
Of fiery red; instead of frigid plains
Of painfully pastel tones, my bones lie under
Seeping fields of sores and blistering boils.
A pox-infected moon am I, a leprous satellite
That brings my smooth-skinned family shame.
Yet, if they knew my secret, the mysteries
I keep hidden from their disapproving
View, they would feel envy, for the tangerine-
And clementine-hued splashes on my
Face are not mere volcanoes, as your
Earthly scientists believe, but are great blooms
And plumes of fyre, breathed out by beasts
Which bathe beneath my Jupiter-racked crust.
Maui, Marduk, Loki dragons all, and with
Volund and Pele prowl and crawl thru my sulphurous
Churning seas; wings outstretched, tails sweeping
To and fro below my scabby-encrusted skin,
Swimming, spinning, gorging on my
Bitter bile before breaking through to spew
Their flaming breath out into space in great
Gushes of furious light. What a sight!
And what luck you had, sending one of your
Nuts and bolts butterflies gliding past me
Just as mighty Tvashtar roared, vomiting his
Dragonfyre towards the stars, howling with
Masubi and Prometheus in a choir of dragons
Singing to the Great Ones swirling storms;
What fortune to soar through this cloud of worlds
On your way to the Belt, and Beyond
© Stuart Atkinson 2007
Nice poem! But...
"nuts and bolts butterflies gliding past me"...
Brilliant as usual, O Laureate....thank you!
If anyone is pox-infected, it's Callisto. Io is just a case of pizza-face (must be a teenager).
Then how about.... Scarface ?
Well, the images are starting to trickle in. A few new Io shots at full disk and from farther out have just shown up on the LORRI raw site. Looks like we'll have to keep our eyes peeled in the coming weeks.
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/index.php?page=1
Well spotted -- I had just visited the site seconds ago and didn't notice the new Io pics interleaved with the previously released ones. Those new four seem to be ISunMon1 and ISunMon2 (http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?act=ST&f=20&t=3963#).
Looks like ISunMon1 and ISunMon2 are down. Tvashtar plume visible in ISunMon2. Major surface changes visible at Acala Fluctus and southwest of Babbar Patera.
I've moved the LPSC related talk here:
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=4019
Maybe I was a little hasty about the "flow" east of Menakha Patera and Pautiwa Patera. Turns out that dark feature was there 10 years ago. I think I was thrown off a bit by a brightening around Euboea Fluctus:
A cool new Io image is now posted on the New Horizons web page:
http://www.pluto.jhuapl.edu/gallery/missionPhotos/pages/031307.html
John
That is truly spectacular!
Absolutely awesome image! Incandescent lava, plumes lit by jupitershine (!)... Can anything escape LORRI!?
That glowing lava really centers the source of the plume and brings out the 3D dome shape of the plume.
Wow... congratulations to you and all the team John, that's a tremendous image...
See? I told you there were dragons down there!
Can you imagine how big that "fire fountain" must be?
What a sight that would be from ground level!
Here's the famous Galileo image of the 1999 fire fountains, which were highly saturated. I think they were a couple of kilometers high. The white streaking below them is due to "bleeding" of the CCD.
John.
I don't think that's the fire fountain. I think that's the inner core of the Tvashtar plume ILLUMINATED by the fire fountain...
VERY nice image, John! As John just posted, the fire fountain from 1999 was only 1 km tall (I know, "only"), too short for NH to see. However, I thought the plume source is further west, in the westernmost Tvashtar patera.
Well, after a little work, I found the vent:
One should also not the apparent absence of the Pele plume...
Nice work Jason! You're ahead of us! Though I have trouble making that dark flow look like a dolphin...
Yup, no Pele plume. We didn't see one in the UV with HST, either.
Nice work, ustrax. Is it just me, or does it look like you can kinda see albedo features in the vicinity of the hot spot? when I look at animated gif I posted, it almost looks like you can see the dark spot marking the rest of the far western Tvashtar patera.
No, the orientation should be different. It doesn't looks like we are seeing the same thing. Hot spot should be right about here:
More images are up. The first three listed look like the image just released by the NH team, but I think there are two new full disk shots as well (2007-02-24). This may be hard to keep track of soon as they keep coming in.
Even without processing, the Tvashtar plume is visible. Really great.
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/index.php?page=1
Two more image sequences are down: ISunMon3 and Ihiresir4 (the 75-ms exposure image was released as a press release earlier, see the above posts).
The ISunMon3 image doesn't cover too much more additional terrain, with poorer resolution, than the first image returned and discussed on page 1 of this thread. So I won't cover this set, other than to say that the Tvashtar plume is visible and some surface changes are apparent at Zal, including an apparent plume ring that may confirm Zal as the location of the fainter of the three plumes seen in the recent press release image.
I've attached the shorter of the three exposures taken during Ihiresir4 and annotated some interesting features. In this image you can make features along a sliver of the trailing hemisphere. No obvious surface changes are apparent, but I direct your attention to the feature I label as "Reactivated flow". Now looking at Galileo images, an inactive flow is visible. But as we have seen at Thor and now Shango Patera, just because an old flow was there before doesn't mean there wasn't a surface change. The source of this flow is a small patera located at around 29 South, 232 West. This patera is surrounded by thin, digitate flows radiating out from the source. One of these flows runs to the northeast of this small patera, and at around 70 km from the vent, greatly expands, forming the flow I marked as "Reactivated flow". Now it does look like it darkened since the Galileo era, BUT given the high phase angle, I am reluctant to go completely with that conclusion. I think more low-phase images, hopefully coming soon will show whether this flow reactivated since Galileo.
I think this can help:
Two new observations have showed up on the SOC page. I've posted crops of the shorter exposure image, magnified 2x. Don't really see any surface changes that jump out at me. The "Reactivated Flow" that I mentioned earlier today appears to be a phase angle effect, not an actual surface change.
The Pele ring continues to evolve. Pele kinda look like the way it did during the C21 non-targeted encounter in July 1999: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA02501 . Pillan has just about faded back to its pre-eruption appearance.
Impressive images. In image lor_0035015234_0x630_sci_2 there are one or two bright pixels on the terminator near Rata Patera. Is that likely to be noise?
Those are quite likely to be noise hits. LORRI seems to be catching precious few hotspots save the one at Tvashtar.
BTW, john_s, no Io images in at least a week? Is everything okay?
Volcanopele-- A couple of things conspired against new posts last week. The first was a spacecraft Go Safe event, which I've chronicled in a PI's Log which should be out Monday afternoon. The second is a
4-day weekend that our Science Ops Center boss has taken (he'll be back to the salt mines on Monday).
Not to worry, NH s fine. More images are coming, soon...
-Alan
Sweet. Good to hear everything is okay (now anyway).
John_s, good to hear you guys are catching more hotspots (either with LORRI and obviously with LEISA). The relative lack of hotspots has been one of the topics of discussion of us Iophiles on the outside looking in. I presume it has to do with the short exposures times and LORRI's weaker response in the near-IR (LORRI senses up to 850 nm compared to Galileo SSI's 1100 nm near-IR response limit).
WOOHOO!! New images are up!
EDIT: The "others" anyway... Nice to see Callisto and Ganymede, and the moon whose name shalt not be mentioned here.
Even at 7.9 Million Kilometers detail can be seen. http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/data/jupiter/level2/lor/jpeg/003458/lor_0034583519_0x630_sci_2.jpg
Amazing.
VP has a simulated view on the first page.
Those images are discussed here: http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=3963&view=findpost&p=85822
The first images from MVIC have been released showing the Tvashtar hotspot and plume:
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/gallery/missionPhotos/pages/032807.html
This corresponds to the LORRI image released earlier this month. Here are a couple of composites using the 20-ms image and the press released 75-ms image:
I posted my version of that image here:
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=3743&view=findpost&p=87019
WOOHOO! More images. Io images even!
Quick look results:
*Plume at Shango Patera Not a plume, actually Skythia MonsI am so lost, that's a plume, but it is at Amirani...
*Prometheus flow hasn't changed shape since the late 2001
*Prominent plume deposit around new lava flow at 58 South, 295 West (northern Lerna Regio). Plume no longer active (not apparent in LORRI images)
Because not everyone is caught up on their Ionian geography, here are some labeled images:
Marchis et al. 2005 reported that a hotspot was observed at the flow labeled "New Flow #2" on December 28, 2001. This hotspot was observed using the Keck telescope's Adaptive Optics system. The authors state that this eruption may have started between the 23rd and 28th since the hotspot was not observed on the 23rd.
Getting the impression here that buying real estate on Io would be risky indeed... ...is there any part of the moon that is not subject to sudden, unexpected volcanic activity? In other words, are there geological districts that are thought to be relatively stable, such as near those tremendous mountains (what's holding them up? )
Actually, on or near mountains would be one of the worst places to build settlements on Io due to the avalanche risk. Most mountains on Io show signs of significant mass wasting, suggesting that they may not be all that stable.
The non-volcanic plains, like Colchis Regio, maybe the best places to put settlements. We haven't really seen new volcanic centers form in the 28 years that volcanoes have been monitored. This suggests to me that settlements within non-volcanic plains could be stable for quite a long time.
And I have narrowed down the date of the northern Lerna Regio eruption. It appears to have been a bright hot spot on July 15, 2005, as observed by the Marchis group working with Keck AO.
Okay, with two eruptions seen by Keck tied to surface changes, I thought I would check on an outburst observed by Marchis et al. on May 28, 2004. Their hotspot was located at 17.5 South, 6.3 West (with error bars of +/- 5 degrees) and was one of the brightest hotspots observed on Io during the interprobum. This eruption was attributed to either Angpetu Patera or Ilmarinen Patera. So, I thought I would look through the New Horizons images to see if there was a visible surface change.
First, let's take a look at the eruption site in Galileo images for context. The first image below is c0420669000r from the 11ISTOPO__01 observation. The second image is the same image, but I have labeled some of the volcanic centers seen in the observation to provide some context. The area marked 0405A is the center of the error box given by Marchis et al. for the May 2004 eruption. This spot is located in the northwestern part of the Tung Yo Fluctus lava flow, an old flow first observed by Voyager. However, keep in mind that box that the hotspot could be located in includes Angpetu, Sui Jen, and Ilmarinen Paterae.
Stealing http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=3971&view=findpost&p=87116, here is an animated gif of the Io images returned thus far showing Ionian albedo features, i.e. the short exposure images. Click on the link above for an animated gif of Europa images.
EDIT: New image added 04/04/07
EDIT: Three new images added 04/07/07
EDIT: Two new images added 04/16/07
EDIT: New image added 04/23/07
EDIT 05/01/07: Movie removed. See http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=3963&view=findpost&p=89403 for updated versions.
Oh, you beat me to it, Jason!
--Emily
Jason, is the USGS map of Io that just showed up on Photojournal actually new, or is it an older release that has just been added late?
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA09257
--Emily
Attached are colorized versions of the three latest LORRI images to be posted on the New Horizons site. Luminosity comes from the New Horizons images, color information comes from a Galileo-only color basemap.
Wow! Lookin' great, Jason, but for some reason the third thumbnail (rightmost) isn't loading...works when you click on it, though.
EDIT: Never mind; it loaded successfully on the third try, you might've been still messing with it.
In many ways, you're right, one certainly shouldn't derive any conclusions from these colorized images. But at the same time, I was curious how combining the two data sets would turn out and I think they came out looking good, though I think some of the polar color became muted a little. But still, I think it was a useful exercise.
VP, did you use the Lab colorspace or something else? I've noticed a bit of a peculiarity in that colorspace in that it does not (at least in Photoshop) separate luminance from chrominance completely, you can have zero luminance and apply some color to it and it will give you a nonzero brightness and color in RGB space. This makes applying lower resolution color data on luminance data with sharp contrast have color fringing at the edges, not very neat.
To create these colorized images, I reprojected a Galileo-only color basemap to the same geometry as the New Horizons image. I opened up both images in Photoshop. I then pasted the LORRI image on to the Galileo image, creating an image with two layers, one for each image. I used Free Transform to rotate the Galileo image since the New Horizons images don't have north straight up but slightly to the right. Once the Galileo and New Horizons images were aligned, in the Layers palette, I selected the New Horizons image and from the drop-down menu there, I selected Luminosity. I think this has a similar effect to using Lab, but this way I can properly align the images before merging the two. The only problems I have are that the color in some places can become muted, and others, like near the terminator, they can become enhanced because of the short exposure times reduces the dynamic range near the terminator.
Which reminds me, I need to correct the alignment of the third image I posted. I need to rotate the color image to better match the NH view. I'll try to do that tomorrow.
EDIT 04/04/07: I've gone ahead and fixed that third image so you shouldn't see any odd color fringing near features like Loki.
A few posts ago, I talked about my search for surface changes at an outburst observed in May 2004. My brief search came up negative, the area around where the hotspot was observed appeared unchanged since it was last observed in August 2001.
I think I may have found a reason why, or a least a precedent in this area, from Geissler et al. (2004). In June 1999, a bright hotspot was observed in this area by ground-based observers. During C21, on July 3, 1999, a large lava flow was observed surrounded by a large (apparently) red ring (see below, first image set). This red ring faded in a little over a month, and was barely seen during observations taken during C22 (second and third attachment below). This suggests that volcanic deposits in this region quickly fade, so that despite the bright outburst only a few years ago, little trace remains.
be careful of merging Galileo color with LORRI images. it may be useful as guide but many of those color deposits have changed.
Absolutely. To be honest, they are more for aesthetic purposes than anything else. It's good to hear that you guys are seeing changes in the color images because I only count a handful from the LORRI images (Shango, Tvashtar, N. Lerna, E. Dazhbog, Pillan, Thor, Kanehekili, and Masubi). [EDIT: oh, and Prometheus]
BTW, if anyone else is looking around for surface changes, be very wary about phase-angle effects. While they are not as dramatic as the brightness reversal between the bright equatorial plains and the dark polar caps seen in high phase angle images, they are out there. They even show up when comparing these fairly moderate phase-angle LORRI images to low-phase Galileo images, like the bright deposits surrounding Dorian Montes and Marduk and the bright stuff southwest of Pele.
Okay, I think I figured out what we are seeing at Pillan, we are seeing both a surface change AND a phase-angle effect. In LORRI images of Pillan, the patera floor appears bright and the lava flow from the 1997 eruption appears dark. So, it would appear that Pillan has brightened since 2001 when it was last observed, indicating that the floor of Pillan Patera is now covered in a layer of SO2 frost.
Now, Galileo saw a bright Pillan Patera floor as well, prior to the eruption. The second image I've posted shows two views of Pillan, the first image from the G1 orbit and the second image from the G2 orbit. Initially, this was attributed to lava being emplaced on the patera floor in the 3 months between observations (or thermal emission from the subsurface burning off the SO2 frost layer), but on the subsequent encounter, C3, the floor was bright again. So what was going on? The G1 and C3 images was taken at a moderate phase angle while G2 image was taken at a low phase angle. Apparently, a thin, transparent layer of SO2 frost covered the floor of Pillan Patera, making the floor appear dark at low phase angles. At higher phase angles, sunlight reflected off the coarse SO2 frost grains, making the patera floor appear bright. This scheme went away following the 1997 eruption as the patera floor was too warm for SO2 deposition from the Pele plume. Pillan Patera remained warm throughout the rest of the Galileo mission, again preventing SO2 deposition.
However, it would appear that Pillan has finally quieted down, and a thin SO2 frost layer has been deposited. Like in the early part of the Galileo mission, at low phase angles Pillan should appear dark (though from looking at earlier NH images of Pillan, its floor still appears bright) and at higher phase angles, it appears bright.
Magnificent, is all. Thanks for posting these, VP. You've just about convinced me that a dedicated Io orbiter should be at the top of the prioritization pile...what a world!
Actually, unless we see a radical improvement in radiation-hardened technology, the last thing I want to see is an Io orbiter. Such a mission would have way too short a lifetime (2 weeks, maybe) to accomplish the kinds of science goals that we want. As mentioned in other topics, it would be better to have a Jupiter-orbiting spacecraft that would repeatedly flyby Io. Such a mission could last 2 years assuming you use the same kind of radiation-hardened technology planned for the current baseline Europa mission (90-day orbital nominal mission).
I keep wondering on the engineering "strategy" of building a mini-Hubble as an outer planets spacecraft.
By that, I don't mean s miniaturized hubble telescope, but a spacecaft that would be essentially a 1 meter or 1.5 meter telescope. Imagine a cassegranian (as a visual example, though we'd probably want all reflecting optics) telescope in a 1-axis fork-mount. The BASE of the mount would be the main spacecraft bus and the BIG X/Ka or whatever band antenna to Earth. ALL of the high power remote sensing instruments would be in bays behind the main mirror, like the instruments on Hubble, with the highest resolution camera at the center of the focal plane pickoff point.
The vehicle's normal mode of operation would be Hubble-like... Instruments all pointing in one direction, but not necessarily overlapping fields of view (unless you can use dichroic mirrors to split (for example) visible and near-IR from thermal IR, etc and share the same fileld of view). The whole telescope could slew toward and away from the beam-angle of the antenna (usually toward the Earth) with one degree of freedom, while spacecraft rolls along the antenna-axis would take care of aximuth pointing.
Use of big photon-grabbing light-bucket optics will give spectrometers a far better tradeoff on area resolution and spectral resolution and signal-to-noise ratio than with Voyager/Galileo/Cassini dedicated instruments, while the sheer diffraction limited resolution increase of the big optics will give the spacecraft the ability to leisurely do whole hemisphere high resolution (kilometer to 100 meter) mapping at 10 times the range of Galileo or Cassini, and permit a Cassini like mission to take frame-filling long range monitoring images instead of of the 50 to 100 pixel icy satellite images it can currently take.
Small, secondary instruments, like Wide-Angle cameras or extreme-ultraviolet spectrometers can be mounted "parasitically" on the main telescope, like finder scopes on a Celestron or the like.
My question is to what extent has mission designs like this been considered compared to the sorts of things we're flying now, with or without scan platforms, with or without near continual telemetry to Earth. What are the drawbacks to such a design, what are the advantages?
I note the currently active thread on an asteroidal "grand tour" multiple flyby encounter mission. A spacecaft built around a telescope like my above idea would have the ability to do high resolution full rotation movies of asteroids during the approach and flyby, in color, and the ability to to substantial hyperspectral imaging of an entire hemisphere during "late far encounter" before fields of view and available time shrink to sample-mapping during close encounter.
It would also be possible to get random "Ann Frank" type (stardust mission) untargeted encounters with enough resolution to show morphology and gross geologic configuration of a sample of asteroids during a long mission, something (as we are seeing) is impossible except by pure luck with untargeted flybys on a Cassini or New Horizons type mission.
Here are the three latest sequences colorized. Again, take the color with a grain of salt, it is a few years old after all compared to the NH data:
cool, VP!
Here is the completed version of that very crude map I posted yesterday:
Volcanopele -- awesome. Thanks for sharing with us here.
Very nice, VP - I couldn't resist doing a bit of ad hoc seam removal on it:
That's sweet, Phil. Is there any "scientific" method you use to equalize the brightnesses on the seams or is that painstaking handwork?
Or a secret, magic recipe?
Three wings from bats, five magnolia leaves, five grams of soil from East Moline, Illinois, and roots from an oak tree - presto you have your map.
*sigh* Science ain't what it used to be...
My seam removal was pure hocus-pocus, only done for esthetic effect. I did it in Photoshop. For each seam I selected (using the polygon tool) an area surrounding the seam and extending about half way into the image area on each side. I feathered the outline of the selection, copied it amd pasted it over itself. Then I used the polygon tool again to trace down the seam exactly, and cut off one side of that new layer. Let's say the side I left was the dark side. Now I could brighten that layer, and also darken the background layer (the bright side of the seam) within a feathered selection, until they matched. Any artifacts right on the seam were removed with the 'dust and scratches' noise filter.
It's not science, it's art!
Phil
Hi Folks-
We've been slow about posting new images on the New Horizons web site lately (we're concentrating on a batch of releases for the post-Jupiter press conference on May 1st), but here's a new one, an MVIC color image showing the night side of Io illuminated by Jupiter:
http://www.pluto.jhuapl.edu/gallery/missionPhotos/pages/041607.html
Nice image, John!
Are you guys sure those are plumes? I know at least one of those is a mountain, need to check the old Galileo/Voyager map again... However, this is in the area of 0405A and the south Karei giant plume deposit from July 1999, as well as the field of hotspots seen by Galileo so I guess it's possible.
In addition to the very nice MVIC image posted today, two additional LORRI images were posted in the New Horizons SOC page. These two images come from two sequences prior to Jupiter C/A: Ieclipse3 and Iocc1.
Tomorrow is the big, post-Jupiter encounter press conference (at 2pm EDT, 11am Volcanopele Standard Time). Hopefully we will see some results from LEISA or LORRI eclipse observations, which would show which volcanoes on Io are currently active. Right now, we have only seen on hotspot (at Tvashtar), and plumes at Prometheus, Amirani, and Masubi (and maybe Zal), indicating continued activity. For example, it would be interesting to see if Shango Patera is still an active eruption site. The surface change at Shango Patera reminds me of Thor and Pillan. Based on our experience at Pillan, a hotspot should still be evident for at least a year after the eruption. So, who knows... The other major surface changes (besides Tvashtar, of course) can be tied to prior eruptions that occurred over the last 5 years, though the Northern Lerna Regio eruption is a little iffy since the only indication of an eruption there comes from a comment in a presentation stating that an eruption "close to Svarog" occurred in July 2005.
BTW, anyone know if press conferences like this are saved somewhere afterward or a way I can save the stream on my computer? Since this is a bit (just a bit...) off-topic, please pm or email me if you can help me.
Best place I've found for NASA TV and copies of old televised events is
http://www.space-multimedia.nl.eu.org/index.php
The quality is generally better than the Nasa-TV feed (!). The updates list at
http://www.space-multimedia.nl.eu.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=category§ionid=1&id=1&Itemid=2
is pretty MSF oriented, but it includes stuff like the STEREO press conferences etc.
A lot of cool stuff all around. Glad to see the eclipse images. Gotta love a mystery volcano.
Based on just eyeballing these hotspot images, I could find the following hotspots (better stuff coming later):
From http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/gallery/missionPhotos/pages/050107/050107_08.html:
Pele
Reiden
E. Girru (the mystery volcano John mentioned in the press conference)
N. Lerna
Ra Patera
Amaterasu Patera
Cast of dozens (sub-Jovian crew)
From http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/gallery/missionPhotos/pages/050107/050107_04.html:
Tvashtar
Amirani
Prometheus
Culann
Tupan
Malik
Shamash
Unnamed volcano at 42.5 South, 174.5 West (Southwestern Mycenae Regio)
Hotspot north of Prometheus (Chaac or Sobo)
Zamama
Maybe another hotspot just south of Tvashtar (Thor or Savitr), could be scattered light though
From http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/pictures/050107_pressGraphics/files/Spencer/Spencer%20Lo-Res/Spencer_06.jpg:
Pele
Reiden
E. Girru
Isum
Donar
Mulungu
Pillan
Zamama
Marduk
Unnamed volcano at 10 South, 217.5 West
Culann
Prometheus
In the third image, you can see Io's anti-Jovian hemisphere in Europa-shine, particularly revealing the albedo features near Isum Patera, Donar Fluctus, and Colchis Regio. Like a similar Galileo image, bright material in the northern reaches of Lei-Kung Fluctus is glowing...ummm, why???? SO2 sublimation perhaps... or deposition?
The Tvashtar plume being visible in this IR view caught me by surprise.
Seems like it would enable this analysis: We can see what temperature the plume "snow" is as a function of where in the plume it is. That should tell us the particle size (or thermal inertia, anyway) because it tells us the rate at which the particles cool in the vacuum of near-Io space. Yes?
Actually the plume isn't visible in the infrared (though we looked hard for it!), just the hot spot on the surface. Too bad!
John.
Here is the LEISA observation superimposed on a Galileo basemap. Looks like Sobo Fluctus and Thor where at little active.
I think the small volcano marked with the arrows in the images below is the source of the E. Girru or Mystery Volcano eruption mentioned by Johh_s in the press conference:
Here is an updated list based on the figures above (around 57 hotspots):
From http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/gallery/missionPhotos/pages/050107/050107_08.html:
Pele, Reiden, E. Girru, N. Lerna Regio, Ra Patera, Amaterasu Patera, Mazda Paterae, Tol-Ava Patera, E. Horus, southwestern portion of Loki Patera?, Hephaestus Patera, Purgine Patera, Sed Patera, Galai Patera, Manua Patera, Fuchi Patera, an unnamed patera at 24.5 North, 335.5 West, Tiermes Patera, Nyambe Patera, an unnamed patera at 5 North, 344 West, an unnamed patera at 3 South, 350 West, Ruwa Patera, an unnamed volcano at 3 South, 355 West, Fjorgynn Fluctus?, NW Fjorgynn, an unnamed volcano at 4 North, 357.5 West, Mama Patera, Ilmarinen Patera, an unnamed volcano at 10 South, 10 West, Karei Patera, and an unnamed volcano at 7 South, 20.5 West
From http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/gallery/missionPhotos/pages/050107/050107_04.html:
Tvashtar, Amirani, Prometheus, Culann, Tupan, Malik, Shamash, an unnamed patera at 42.5 South, 174.5 West (Southwestern Mycenae Regio) and the flows to the northwest of that patera, Sobo Fluctus, Zamama, Thor
From http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/pictures/050107_pressGraphics/files/Spencer/Spencer%20Lo-Res/Spencer_06.jpg:
Pele, Reiden Patera, E. Girru, Isum Patera, unnamed volcano at 28 North, 192 West, Mulungu Patera, Llew Patera, Pillan Patera, Zamama, Marduk, an unnamed patera at 10 South, 217.5 West, Culann Patera, Prometheus, Hephaestus Patera, Purgine Patera, an unnamed patera at 4 North, 283.5 West, an unnamed patera at 1.5 North, 193.5 West, an unnamed patera at 6.5 North, 188 West, an unnamed patera and flow field at 3 North, 184 West, Kurdalagon Patera, Sethlaus Patera, an unnamed patera at 42.5 South, 174.5 West (Southwestern Mycenae Regio), N. Lerna Regio, Loki (maybe), S. Caucasus, and an unnamed patera at 4 North, 209 West
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/pictures/050107_pressGraphics/files/Spencer/Spencer%20Lo-Res/Spencer_03.jpg
One of the slides john_s showed today displays three additional plumes in addition to the 4 observed thus far at Io during this encounter (Tvashtar, Amirani, Masubi, and Tvashtar). As mentioned in the press conference, the plume on the limb is associated with the Northern Lerna Regio eruption. Just beyond the terminator are two additional plumes. The northern plume is associated with the persistent hotspot, Marduk. A plume was also observed at Marduk by Voyager and Galileo. The southern plume is associated with Kurdalagon Patera, a persistent hotspot. AFAIK, no plume has ever been seen at this volcano.
BTW, Kurdalagon, weirdest plume deposit since Euboea:
Coolness, Jason! Do you know how many more frames you expect to see?
--Emily
Looks like around 13 more frames for a total of 35 frames. I am of course, skipping eclipse frames.
There are a number of new Io images on the LORRI raw images page. I'm not going to cover these like I've done before (unless you guys really want me to), but needless to say there is a lot of coolness there. Like several images of the Tvashtar and its glowing lava (in daylight no less), the three southern hemisphere plumes, and numerous eclipse images.
One of the interesting topics covered in yesterday's press conference is the field of bright spots seen near the pro- and anti-Jovian points on Io when it is in eclipse. Now, correct me John if I get any of this wrong, but basically it is thought that these represent areas near volcanic vents where gas is being excited by the electrical current running between Jupiter and Io, which connect to Io through the pro- and anti-Jovian points on the surface.
I'm thinking that each and every one of those spots represent an active volcano. However, the bright spots seen are what are described in the press conference, glowing gas. The greater heat flow at these volcanoes is enough to increase the column density of the atmosphere above each of these volcanoes, making them appear brighter in this region. The volcanoes or the density of volcanoes may not be all that unusual, but their location near the pro- and anti-Jovian points puts them in a position where the gases above the volcanoes are excited. The Galileo NIMS instrument showed that the number of active vents observed increases as you improve spatial resolution. For example, in the Chaac-Camaxtli region, 6 hotspots where observed in high resolution observation taken in February 2001. Lower-resolution data showed only a couple. So the density of volcanic vents observed in eclipse at the pro- and anti-jovian points may be typical of the density across the rest of the surface, but the effect of the electric current on the gases near these vents improves their visibility even in these eclipse observations.
Bottom line, many of the glowing spots near the pro- and anti-jovian points, observed when Io is in eclipse, represent active volcanic vents, but the glow itself comes from glowing gases, not thermal emission.
Volcanopele,
You're right about that aurora, it's gas (SO2) excited by electrons. However, those two spots at opposite sides of the equator need not be anywhere near a volcano. The SO2 gas from the volcanos has spread around the planet to form a tenous atmosphere.
Side note: this SO2 atmosphere freezes onto the poles, that's why the poles are bright (in the visible spectrum).
There's a great movie of Io's aurora from Cassini's flyby of Jupiter. It's in a Science paper by Porco and others under "Supplemental online material." If you can't access it, I'd be happy to email it. tac2z@virginia.edu
Below are two eclipse image compared to a reprojected version of the new USGS basemap. The first eclipse image is from Galileo during orbit E11. The image was taken on Nov. 8, 1997 at 11:44 UTC and has a resolution of 13.6 km/pixel. This image shows hotspots on Io's trailing hemisphere, glows along the limb, and glows in the north polar region, and surface features illuminated by Europa-shine. The second eclipse images is from New Horizons, the Ieclipse4 observation. The image is a merge, from the press conference, of at least two eclipse images and was taken on March 1, 2007. The original images had a resolution of 53.084 km/pixel but were magnified 4x here. Once again, the image shows hotspots on Io's trailing hemisphere, glows along the limb, and glows in the north polar region, and several surface features illuminated by Europa-shine.
Many of the N. Polar glows remain consistent. Of particular note is a glow over a very bright spot (the bright spot on Io in terms of Bond albedo, from Simonelli et al. 2001) at 67.5 North, 195 West.
Looking at that image again, perhaps one should be on the look out for a plume at Hephaestus Patera...
Rather than upload a new movie here ever time a new LORRI image shows up, I'm just going to put it at:
http://pirlwww.lpl.arizona.edu/~perry/Io_movie.gif
Terrific, VP; thanks!
Now we have an "proper" movie of the Tvashtar plume- here's the animated GIF:
Bravo!!!!!
!! that's my second 'wow' in less than 5 minutes. i love this place.
WOW!
VERY SWEET!!
Just flipping through the SOC images too, there are definitely two plumes at Masubi. Nice to know I wasn't crazy...
Here is a graphic illustrating the changes at Masubi, and the sources of the two plumes:
Wow here too.
As promised:
Late to the party re the plume movie..."wow" don't cut it, gotta bust loose with a <CLINK!!!> What a sight...
*clink* in the swear box. 1st in some weeks. Still spectacular after reading the notes and figuring a ~10**3X speedup.
Lovely animation! And if the plume's about 250km high, then the gunk is rocketing out of Io at around ... ummm ... 900 m/s.
<clink><clink><clink>
Andy
Have just seen the plume movie on Emily's blog @ TPS.
WOW!
...
Just think what we might have seen IF Galileo's main antenna hadn't got stuck. Some more tears shed here.
Neat http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/view_obs.php?image=data/jupiter/level2/lor/jpeg/003510/lor_0035103209_0x630_sci_1.jpg&utc_time=2007-03-02%3Cbr%3E01:01:31%20UTC&description=Jupiter+ring+-+main+ring+vertical+structure+including+ripples&target=JUPITER&range=3.8M%20km&exposure=100%20msec of Io being occulted by Jupiter. Edge of Tvashtar's plume visible at the top.
I hadn't realized that was a Jupiter occultation -- just thought it was subframed for some reason. Now I can see the disk, and realize from the exposure time of 100 ms that the surface of Io is lit by Jupitershine. That is a cool picture!
--Emily
What a movie! Together with the dust devil movies on Mars they remind me that the Earth is not the only active place in the solar system.
Enthusiasm + good planning + a bit of luck = awesome movie
Wow - I've just gone back and read the first reply I made to the Kodak Moment 'RFP' from last year - and it was something similar - glad to see I wasn't entirely wrong about the atmospheric effects
Doug
I've updated my animated gif of Io images:
http://pirlwww.lpl.arizona.edu/~perry/Io_movie.gif
As we more and more crescent views come down, be on the look out for faint plumes:
Here is a list of plumes from NH thus far:
I like your new avatar, volcanopele!
(Maybe you should change your name to volcanotvashtar )
--Emily
I'm blown away, seeing that plume rising above the edge of Io, to me, is the most dramatic picture I've seen since those first pictures from Huygens. Seeing the glowing eruptions on the night side of Io during an eclipse, simply breathtaking.
Absolutely remarkable, and all from a flyby!
A nice series of pictures just added to the SOC site, showing the night side of Io just beside the limb of Jupiter
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/data/jupiter/level2/lor/jpeg/003527/lor_0035273519_0x630_sci_1.jpg
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/data/jupiter/level2/lor/jpeg/003527/lor_0035273539_0x630_sci_1.jpg
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/data/jupiter/level2/lor/jpeg/003527/lor_0035273542_0x630_sci_1.jpg
Here is another cool one:
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/view_obs.php?image=data/jupiter/level2/lor/jpeg/003522/lor_0035222819_0x630_sci_2.jpg&utc_time=2007-03-03%3Cbr%3E10:15:01%20UTC&description=High+phase+monitoring&target=IO&range=5.8M%20km&exposure=93%20msec
Obviously the Tvashtar plume is quite prominent at upper right. You can also see the Prometheus plume on the dark limb at center right and the plume over the northern Lerna Regio eruption near the terminator at bottom. Also near the limb you can see the bright material surrounding Ra Patera and "Carancho Montes", an 8-km tall mountain chain northeast of Ra Patera.
Bellissime, Paolo!
The 3 exposures are taken with increasing integration time, only in the first one Jupiter is not oversaturated (...solarized!? ).
Here I crudely merged the first and the last in order to have a "High Dinamic Range" image (Io details are enhanced):
cool, VP... well done!
A lot of nice Io images are now up on the LORRI raw images page. I think this may wrap up the Io images except for some eclipse observations.
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/data/jupiter/level2/lor/jpeg/003521/lor_0035215639_0x630_sci_1.jpg
This image shows Loki and Ra Patera at high phase angles. Note their forward scattering properties. At Loki, this is likely due to a glassy lava surface. Compare with this Galileo image: http://pirlwww.lpl.arizona.edu/~perry/io_images/32ISLOKI__01.jpg . See also http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/data/jupiter/level2/lor/jpeg/003520/lor_0035208179_0x630_sci_1.jpg for a VERY shiny Loki.
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/data/jupiter/level2/lor/jpeg/003513/lor_0035136929_0x630_sci_1.jpg
Europa and Io
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/data/jupiter/level2/lor/jpeg/003514/lor_0035149942_0x630_sci_1.jpg
Is Thor erupting too?
Whoah -- that glassy surface is really cool. I hadn't been aware of that charateristic of Ionian paterae before. Thanks for pointing that out, VP!
--Emily
This appears to be all she wrote WRT Io images from New Horizons (LORRI images anyway), though there are some eclipse observations left to go. I want to congratulate John Spencer, Jeff Moore, Alan Stern, and the rest of the New Horizons team on planning and returning such a wonderful dataset, and I want to thank them for making these jpegs available on the web. Looks like there is plenty to work with, particularly with plume dynamics. I certainly echo John's statements at the press conference, that it will be sad to no longer see new images show up.
The final version of time-lapse movie from New Horizons can once again be found:
http://pirlwww.lpl.arizona.edu/~perry/Io_movie.gif
Here are a few looks at the images that showed up today:
Here is the Io/Europa conjunction, with combined http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/gallery/missionPhotos/pages/040207.html and http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/data/jupiter/level2/lor/jpeg/003513/lor_0035136929_0x630_sci_1.jpg data:
Wow... the time-lapse movie leaves me speechless. Truly. Awesome.
If you have been following the main Jupiter encounter thread, you know that some of the New Horizons data has been uploaded to the PDS. This includes data from all instruments, not just LORRI. For Io surface science, the most important instruments are LORRI, MVIC, and LEISA. I have made some headway playing around with LORRI and MVIC data. LEISA, well, the data is there, but the time being it is beyond my skills to manipulate. I can view but I have no method for trying to pull out hotspots from that stuff (other than Tvashtar, which glows like a beacon, that volcano sure is a ham... ). Anyway, here are the two color views I have been most looking forward to, and I will leave it at that.
For the record, the color data is from MVIC, with LORRI providing the greyscale high resolution data:
You've got to warn people before posting pictures like that
Doug
<clink! clink! clink!>
THANK YOU for that second Io pic... that is simply stunning... serious case of acne that poor moon has...
Hope you won't mind me showing that pic in one of my school talks next week, the kids'll love it!
..Deleted.
A few comments:
1) in the first image, Emakong Patera is a little further to the north, directly between Prometheus and Sigurd. The feature you labeled as "Ekhi Patera" is actually Arusha Patera. Ekhi is to the northeast.
2) The feature you labeled as "Amirani" in the second image is actually Shango Patera and the new lava flow that has formed to the south of that volcano. The feature you labeled as "Maui" is actually Amirani. Itzamna Patera is also labeled incorrectly. It is labeled correctly in the first image.
Who deleted that post with the pictures?
He (3488) did. For some reason he wanted to delete all his posts and leave.
Doug
...okay, I was wondering what was going on, too. Pity.
In conjunction with the publication of "Io Volcanism Seen by New Horizons: A Major Eruption of the Tvashtar Volcano" in Friday's New Horizons @ Jupiter special issue of the journal Science, several images have been released based on figures from the paper. The first, located at http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/pages/100907_10.html, shows a montage of images taken of the Tvashtar plume, including an HST observation from before the encounter, several high-resolution LORRI views of the plume, and a series of images taken at 2-minute intervals. The LORRI images reveal filamentary structures that can change over a very short period of time as they descend from the top of the plume back down to the surface. The appearance of the plume is consistent with non-ballistic trajectories of the dust particles within the plume (caused by interaction between the dust and gas in the plume) and with the dust being created from condensation of gas at the top of the plume [N.B. the lack of a central eruption column, a la Prometheus].
The second image, located at http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/pages/100907_9.html, shows a montage of eclipse images. Eclipse images acquired by LORRI revealed a number of hotspots caused by active volcanism on the surface, auroral glows (note the glowing atmosphere allowing you to see where the limb is in the eclipse data), and other glows. Included in the "other glows" are fields of bright spots near the sub- and anti-jovian points. Comparing the eclipse data to a visible basemap, these bright spots correspond to volcanoes. Because these spots are not seen by the LEISA instrument, it is thought that these glows are not caused by thermal emission, but are instead caused by gases over the volcanoes becoming excited by Jupiter's magnetosphere. It is still possible that these volcanoes are the site of current or recent volcanic activity, but the thermal emission that produced is either too small or too cool to be detected by LEISA (keep in mind that LEISA does not see as far into the Near-infrared as NIMS did, so older hotspots may not be detected by LEISA. For example, a 200K hotspot, corresponding to a cooled flow that erupted 3.5 years ago (assuming a 10-m thick flow with basaltic composition), might not be detectable with LEISA, but it might lead to an enhancement in SO2, which would be seen in these LORRI eclipse images.
The third image, located at http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/pages/100907_8.html details activity on the surface of Io, as plumes, surface changes, and hotspots are marked on this map.
Also, the slides from John Spencer's presentation here at DPS yesterday are also available on line. Those are located at: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/100907_pressGraphics.htm.
I've put a page for New Horizons' Io observations. The images are kept in 16-bit PNG format.
http://pirlwww.lpl.arizona.edu/~perry/New_Horizons/
Very cool. I like the colorised versions, even if the color is a bit outdated!
No I still got a few more to go. I'm about 2/3rds of the way through.
An excellent resource, Jason, thanks very much for it. A question -- do the settings you selected for the Unsharp Mask tool have any basis in characteristics of the camera, or are those settings just what made the images look subjectively the best to you?
--Emily
It was subjective. That, and it was the settings Unsharp Mask was at when I started up Photoshop. Looked good enough to me, so I kept it.
When I ran a mailing list once, an angry boss used a member's email account to email the list and ask all of us to stop sending that naughty employee so many non-work-related emails. Avocation battles vocation. And then there's the angry wife with the rolling pin...
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