In cooler regions, the sulfur solidifies to an odd yellow-green, while cold white sulfur dioxide frost appears nearly everywhere else. Singular explosions can create red rings. Io’s most violent eruptions throw umbrella-shaped or fan-shaped red or white plumes around each volcano. Our Moon’s gray, colorless, unchanging appearance contrasts with Io’s ever-mutating yellows, oranges, and reds - mostly forms of sulfur in various stages of solidification. Io is nearly our Moon’s twin - just 5 percent larger - but no two worlds could be more different. This is 25 percent faster than even gas giant Jupiter’s super-fast rotation, whose equatorial speed is some 24 times more rapid than our planet’s. The explanation, of course, is due to Jupiter’s tremendous mass and gravity, which whips the satellite to an unvarying speed of 38,700 mph (62,300 km/h). But while our satellite requires four weeks to complete a circuit, Io does it in 421/2 hours. To appreciate this motion, consider that Io orbits Jupiter at nearly the same distance as the Moon orbits Earth. We’re excited to announce Astronomy magazine’s new Space and Beyond subscription box – a quarterly adventure, curated with an astronomy-themed collection in every box. It whizzes completely around Jove in just 13/4 days.īringing the universe to your door. He soon found that this moon moves so quickly, it visibly changes position in an hour or two. If we want to award it with yet another superlative, Io’s surface suffers the highest radiation of any known object, as well.Īnd yet, no hint of this extreme activity greeted Galileo Galilei on January 8, 1610, when he first laid eyes on Io through his crude, smudgy, 20-power telescope. More than 100 active volcanoes dot Io’s landscape, and at least a half-dozen are always erupting. Jupiter’s moon Io makes our 50 Weirdest list because it changes the fastest - its surface remakes itself more quickly than any other - and because it’s the most volcanically violent place known anywhere. The celestial object with the shortest name in the universe also ranks among its most peculiar, and not just because it resembles a pizza with anchovies.
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