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Io Has Geysers, Lakes And Snow
An article this week in the journal Science , as reported in this CNN story, reveals that in addition to volcanos, Io is also home to vast mountain ranges, lakes of lava and sulfuric geysers up to 50 miles high. Photographs and thermal measurements from the keep-on-chuggin' Galileo enabled the discoveries. See the NASA press release for slightly more detail, as well as for newly released images (May 18th) from Galileo. (You can read the full Science article here, but it requires either a subscription or a fee.)
Yup, sounds like Iowa to me. Ever been to Cedar Rapids?
Don't just whine about poor internet privacy and freedom policies,
I am not sure if you guys understand what is the source of IO's energy. Earth is hot in the core due to the radioactive elements found in this planet. It is true that all the internal heat of this planet is created by radioactive materials.
IO is so hot because it is spinning around huge Jupiter that creates enormous tides on its satellite. The heat is produced by electromagnetic friction and tidal waves in the mantel.
On Earth there was no life at the times when most of its surface was covered with over active volcanos. On IO, the electromagnetic forces of Jupiter are so strong that it would be extremely difficult for any life supporting molecules to build up simply because the chemical reactions would not take place or would be destroyed by strong electromagnetic forces.
Of-course we could speculate that the life forms of IO could in principle find it beneficial to use electromagnetic forces of invisible spectrum just like the Earth plants and some bacteria uses visible light to produce chlorophyll. There are no such life forms on Earth but they are not exactly impossible (they could exist somewhere) however, it is easy to predict that such life forms can exist in the right conditions, how would these life forms be created in the first place? IO is highly unstable and does not support predictable conditions for prolong periods of time. I do not believe we'll find any life on IO, we did not find anything on Mars and we know there was water there long time ago. Sad, but Earth will probably stay the only planet in this Solar System that originated life by itself. (We also must check out Callisto, but that is another matter.)
You can't handle the truth.
Water/ice on Europa - Check
Volcanos on Io - Check
Ice in the moon - Check
Europa most likely location of life - Check
Sulfur vents on Io - Check
So what's next? The Jupiter-Io Flux or Deep Sea Vents on Europa?"I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy." -Richard Feynman