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New Horizons cameras captured a nuclear conflict between the peoples of Europa and Io during its flyby of the Jupiter system in late February.

Tensions were high between the two groups prior to the encounter after negotiations broke down over Io's sulfur emissions. Ionian sulfur is prevalent throughout the Jovian system and often coats many of the other moons. A recent incident involving infalling sulfur and the birthday party of the daughter of Europan president Midir Amaethon heightened tensions between the two nuclear-armed advisaries. After a summit between the Europan president and Ionian prime minister, Horus Radegast, failed to achieve a compromise, war between the two nations resumed. Europa and Io were involved in a limited nuclear conflict as part of the Jovian War that lasted for 5 years and ended with the Dazhbog Accords in 2001.

"One of the primary goals of the New Horizons mission was to observe the current state of diplomacy between the two foes. We never imagined that relations had plummeted this badly," said New Horizons Principle Investigator Alan Stern. "We were hopeful that after Dazhbog, the Jovian system had entered into a new era of peace."

There was some concern in the first couple of years of mission planning regarding possible Ionian objections to the New Horizons Jupiter flyby. Terrestrial and Ionian relations hit a low point in 2003 when the Ionian government accused Earth of attempting to provide weapons-grade plutonium to Europa under the guise of a scientific mission known as JIMO. After the scandal that resulted, JIMO was canceled. This also forced the intentional crashing of Galileo into Jupiter, again to prevent either side from obtaining the plutonium carried on-board. The American government continues to insist that the plutonium on-board both spacecraft were for energy purposes and were not intended to be delivered to either of the current belligerents. However, Ionian-Terrestrial relations have improved in recent years and the New Horizons encounter with Jupiter was allowed to proceed.

"We were very happy that we were allowed to continue with the mission as planned. If we had to avoid Jupiter due to poor diplomatic relations with the governments in the Jovian system, we would have to delay our Pluto flyby by several years," explained Stern.

Recent images returned by New Horizons taken by the LORRI camera revealed the extent of the conflict as numerous hotspots from nuclear detonations were observed on both Io and Europa.

"We were initially hoping that these bright spots were caused by cosmic ray hits or volcanic eruptions, but when we saw these features in Europa images and radiation measurements from PEPSSI, we concluded that these were from nuclear detonations," said Deputy Principal Investigator John Spencer.

Data from the Jupiter encounter will be played back over the next few weeks, as information on the conflict continues to trickle in. Preliminary analysis of recent REX data suggest that a cease-fire was declared in late March with the Ionians demanding a Europan unconditional surrender by today, April 1.