December 20, 1999
Some stars end in silence, some in fire, and some leave behind the raw materials for birthdays.
Lava Fountain on Jupiter's Io
Birthday · December 20, 1999
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APOD published December 20, 1999. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
A lava fountain shooting over a kilometer high has been discovered on Jupiter's moon Io. The robot Galileo spacecraft orbiting Jupiter photographed the volcanic eruption during its close flyby of the moon late last month. The fountain is visible in the above mosaic of images from the flyby. The lava plume was so bright it saturated Galileo's camera, and so has been digitally reconstructed in false color. The hot lava appears to be shooting from a 20-kilometer long canyon on Io's active surface.