jupiter

  • Yeah, That’s a Freakin’ Lava Lake on a Moon

    Yeah, That’s a Freakin’ Lava Lake on a Moon

    Two recent flybys of Jupiter’s moon Io by NASA’s Juno spacecraft revealed a couple of stunning surprises: a remarkably steep mountain and islands in the middle of a burbling lava lake. The new findings were announced yesterday by Scott Bolton, the principal investigator of the Juno mission, at the European Geophysical Union’s General Assembly. “Io…


  • You’ve Never Seen Jupiter Look So Much Like Cotton Candy

    You’ve Never Seen Jupiter Look So Much Like Cotton Candy

    You probably know Jupiter, the rotund fifth planet from the Sun, as orange and tan with a big red splotch. But the Hubble Space Telescope recently imaged the gas giant in ultraviolet light, giving the world a very different look. At UV wavelengths, Jupiter’s clouds appear in bright pinks, blues, and purple hues. The image is…