See wild new close-up images of Jupiter's volcanic moon Io

The distorted surface of Jupiter's moon Io has been revealed in great detail by the Juno spacecraft, which has been exploring the Jovian system since 2016 and recently made the closest flyby of the volcanic world.

It was NASA's Jupiter probe A close encounter with IU on Saturday, December 30It flew 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) away from its hellish surface. This is not only the closest flyby of Io by Juno, but of any spacecraft in the past 20 years, according to NASA.

During this rare encounter, Juno captured intimate views of Jupiter's moon using the three cameras on board. On Sunday, NASA released six the pictures The moon Io as seen by the spacecraft.

Jupiter's rocky moon is the most volcanically active body in the solar system. As new images reveal, Io's surface is scarred by hundreds of volcanoes and molten silicate lava lakes that appear as burnt scars across its tortured landscape. As the innermost of Jupiter's four Galilean moons, Io is caught between the planet's immense gravitational pull and the gravitational pull of its sister moons Europa and Ganymede. This contributes to the Moon's volcanic activity as Io is constantly being stretched and compressed due to its position.

With the flyby of Io, the team behind the Juno mission is investigating the source of the moon's volcanic activity and hopes to learn whether it has a magma ocean beneath its crust, according to NASA. The Juno science team will study how often volcanoes on Io erupt, how bright and hot they are, and how the shape of the lava flow changes.

Io is also the primary source of most of the charged particles in Jupiter's magnetosphere, creating a doughnut-shaped cloud of ions and electrons that surrounds the planet. The cloud, known as the Io Plasma Torus, forms when atmospheric gases emerging from Io are ionized. A group of scientists from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, will also study how Io's volcanic activity relates to the flow of charged particles in Jupiter's magnetosphere by combining Juno data with Juno data. Remote observations by the Hubble and Webb space telescopes.

In October, Juno captured an ominous view of Io, revealing its charred surface in the sky Closest view of the moon This dimension. Juno too I took a cozy family photo of Jupiter and Io In September, the gas giant and its moon were revealed side by side.

Juno's recent flyby of Io marked the spacecraft's 57th orbit around the Jovian system, where it was exposed to years of radiation from the gas giant's environment. “The cumulative effects of all this radiation are starting to show up on JunoCam over the last few orbits,” Ed Hurst, Juno project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a statement. “Our engineering team is working on solutions to mitigate radiation damage and keep the imager running.”

Juno is scheduled to make a second close flyby of Io on February 3, when the spacecraft will come within 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) of the moon's surface.

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