Tucson Standard

New images of Jupiter's moon Io have been captured by the Large Binocular Telescope on Mount Graham in Arizona. These images, taken with a new high-contrast optical imaging instrument called SHARK-VIS, provide the highest resolution of Io ever achieved from Earth. The telescope's adaptive optics system helps reduce atmospheric blurring, allowing for clearer observations.

The images will be published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters and reveal surface features as small as 50 miles across. This level of detail was previously only possible with spacecraft sent to Jupiter. Al Conrad, associate staff scientist at the Large Binocular Telescope Observatory and first author of the paper, noted that these eruptions on Io "dwarf their contemporaries on Earth."

Conrad emphasized that Io offers a unique opportunity to study volcanic activity that has shaped other celestial bodies like Earth and its moon. The Large Binocular Telescope is part of Mount Graham International Observatory under the University of Arizona Steward Observatory.

Ashley Davies, co-author and principal scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, highlighted how SHARK-VIS has allowed identification of a major resurfacing event around Pele volcano. She explained that changes observed are due to dark lava deposits and white sulfur dioxide deposits from an eruption at Pillan Patera covering Pele's plume deposit.

Imke de Pater, professor emerita at the University of California – Berkeley, stressed the importance of visible light observations provided by SHARK-VIS for identifying eruption locations and surface changes not detectable in infrared imagery.

SHARK-VIS was developed by the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics and installed at LBT in 2023 alongside its near-infrared counterpart SHARK-NIR. Gianluca Li Causi described how data processing removes electronic footprints from sensors using software called Kraken to achieve sharpness in images.

Simone Antoniucci anticipates further observations throughout the solar system using SHARK-VIS’s capabilities to study surfaces beyond giant planet moons, including asteroids.