Animation of Tvashtar Volcano Erupting on Io

May 15, 2007 2:12 PM

Tvashtar in Motion. Awesome five-frame GIF of fountaining sulfuric lava on Io courtesy New Horizons as it swung by Jupiter earlier this year. Found via Planetary Society Blog (Thank you, Emily). More on Tvashtar.
posted by brownpau (19 comments total)

Whoa!
posted by brundlefly at 2:31 PM on May 15, 2007

"Only the upper part of the plume is visible from this vantage point – the plume’s source is 130 kilometers (80 miles) below the edge of Io's disk, on the far side of the moon."

Super-extra-double whoa!

Stunning.
posted by rtha at 2:33 PM on May 15, 2007

I like the fact that you can see how fast Io's rotation is! In the eight minutes it took to get this sequence, it moves pretty dramatically.
posted by Vamier at 2:43 PM on May 15, 2007

I forgot about this artificial satellite, awesome!
posted by furtive at 2:55 PM on May 15, 2007

The astronomy links in the last few months have been simply amazing. Where are y'all finding this stuff?
posted by anotherpanacea at 2:55 PM on May 15, 2007

Is that john sweeney yelling at scientologists on the other side of that moon?
posted by phaedon at 2:57 PM on May 15, 2007

Even now, when NASA doesn't get a lot of public glory, the work they do is still as interesting as ever. Great post... I'm going to look into an internship now.
posted by phrontist at 2:57 PM on May 15, 2007

Spiders from Mars!
posted by Flashman at 3:04 PM on May 15, 2007

That's pretty freaking neat.
posted by honeydew at 3:11 PM on May 15, 2007

Good find, brown-p!
posted by Dizzy at 3:25 PM on May 15, 2007

that is one big damn volcano!
posted by shmegegge at 3:28 PM on May 15, 2007

OMG, that thing is huge. Amazing. It's like something out of a freakin' comic book. If Io were the size of the Earth (it's actually about the same size as Earth's moon), it looks like that volcano would be covering most of North America.
posted by straight at 3:37 PM on May 15, 2007

On Earth the volcano would be this big.
posted by Joeforking at 4:12 PM on May 15, 2007 [1 favorite]

Yay Science!
posted by SassHat at 4:29 PM on May 15, 2007

Jerry Falwell is alive and well on Io?
posted by wfrgms at 4:31 PM on May 15, 2007

It's a giant lawn sprinkler.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 4:37 PM on May 15, 2007

If Io were the size of the Earth ... that volcano would be covering most of North America.

Gee, that sounds sort of familiar....
posted by pax digita at 5:44 PM on May 15, 2007

dude!
posted by garethspor at 12:48 AM on May 16, 2007

I was thinking the same thing, pax digita.
posted by brundlefly at 9:16 AM on May 16, 2007