The righteous moon Io spews dust from its volcanoes that hits distant spacecraft
Nitzan Achsaf, a window to physics
Right: Eruption of Io. Left: the spaceship Ulysses
Direct link to this page: https://www.hayadan.org.il/jupiter190904.html
Saturn's moon - 'Io' (IO), is full of the most active volcanoes in our solar system. Hot vents emit plumes of gas and dust to a height of 400 km. They erupt, emit, calm down and then erupt again - and God forbid.
The towering formations and graceful arcs of rising and falling ash are eerily beautiful. At their height they reach space and freeze. Below, scientists believe, it is snowing. Sulfide flakes crystallize at the peak of the metamorphisms and then gently drift down to cover the colorful ground surface of 'Ayo'.
Above the falling snow something unexpected happens; At the peak of these transformations, some of the ash and dust, which should have fallen back before the moon, do not return. While 'ignoring' gravity, they continue on; Not just without slowing down, but while accelerating, 2x, 10x, 100x faster than the speed of a gun bullet fired, away from 'Io' and into deep space.
Spaceships passing by - you should be careful, 'Io' is shooting at you!
The first spacecraft to discover the aforementioned event was the Ulysses spacecraft in 1992, when it approached Jupiter and was hit by a very dangerous stream of volcanic dust. The dust came in a narrow stream, like water coming out of a garden hose, and its speed was more than a million km/h. This makes the aforementioned stream one of the fastest moving materials in our solar system (second only to the solar wind). Fortunately for the spacecraft, the dust particles are similar in size to the particles that come out of cigarette smoke, so they did not penetrate the body of the spacecraft despite their enormous speed.
At first, no one suspected 'Io'. The Ulysses spacecraft was 100 million km away from Io when the volcanic stream hit it. In addition, the speed of the dust was too high. If particles were coming from 'Io' then their speed would be between 4000 and 7000 km/h not a million km/h.
The surprised researchers tried to think of other possibilities that could explain this phenomenon; Perhaps the dark rings of Jupiter are responsible for this? There is a lot of dust in there, but how can rings create fast jets of dust? Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 is also a possibility; It flew so close to Jupiter in 1992 that it was torn apart. Comets are known to create jets of dust, but not as fast as the jet that hit Ulysses.
NASA's Galileo spacecraft solved the mystery in 1995 when it approached Jupiter. Unlike 'Ulysses' which passed by Jupiter, 'Galileo' entered a peripheral orbit around the planet. Over the years, while accumulating a lot of information, the scientists were able to link volcanic activity with dust events, and moreover, they showed that the dust jets are regulated by the orbital movement of 'Io'. The source is undoubtedly 'Eu'.
The explanation for the speed of the dust is correct; It is not only a giant planet, but also a giant magnet that rotates every 9 hours and 55 minutes. Rotating magnetic fields create electric fields, and the magnetic fields around Jupiter are strong. Io's dust, like the dust on our computer monitors, is electrically charged, so Jupiter's electrical forces accelerate these grains to a speed of a million km/h without a problem.
In 2000, the Cassini spacecraft passed by Jupiter on its way to Saturn, and it too was hit by a stream of dust. But the dust detectors on this spacecraft were much more sophisticated, and in addition to measuring the mass, speed, charge and trajectory of the dust particles they also measured their composition. 'Cassini' found hints of sulphur, silicon, sodium and potassium - they all have a source
Volcanic.
This makes it possible to analyze the face of an island from a great distance. There is no need to get close to these hot currents, when you can catch this dust from a distance of thousands of kilometers. The aforementioned dust can even reach Earth, but we won't be able to see it, because its particles are so tiny.
'Ulysses' was hit again by the dust stream in 2004, but this time something strange happened; The dust was shot in the 'wrong' direction. The dust was supposed to fly from the equator of Jupiter, but the spacecraft was even close to the north pole of Jupiter, and yet it was hit by dust. It turns out that Zedek shoots the dust of 'Io' in all directions, something that is very difficult to understand. Future missions will attempt to unravel the mystery.
A window to physics
For information on the NASA website
Yedan was right
https://www.hayadan.org.il/BuildaGate4/general2/data_card.php?Cat=~~~955404363~~~19&SiteName=hayadan
