A NASA spacecraft orbiting Jupiter has just witnessed some of the most extreme volcanic eruptions ever seen in the solar system, coming from a giant underground magma chamber on the "tormented" Jovian moon Io. The energy pouring from this record-breaking hot spot far exceeds the amount of power we are producing on Earth, researchers say.
Io is Jupiter's third-largest moon, spanning roughly 2,300 miles (3,700 kilometers) across, which makes it slightly bigger than Earth's moon. It orbits Jupiter at a distance of around 262,000 miles (422,000 km) — also similar to how far away the moon orbits Earth — but it travels much faster than its lunar counterpart, whipping around Jupiter every 42.5 hours. This is due to the gas giant's immense gravity, which has also turned Io into a fiery hellscape covered with up to 400 volcanoes and multiple lava lakes.
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