Friday, October 8, 2010

APOD 1.6

Io in True Color
October 3, 2010

This picture was taken by the spacecraft Galileo in 1999. It truly astounds me that we can see what lies millions of miles away. The interesting part of the picture is that NASA has reconstructed the image of Io so the image resembles that of what the moon would really look like to the human eye. The yellow coloring is due to the sulfur and the silica in the moon. The amount of sulfur must be amazing because sulfur is abundant in volcanoes. And since the entire moon is a giant volcano it would make sense as to why the moon is yellow. The weird holes are actually volcanoes. Each one is a separate volcano! NASA stated that there are so many volcanoes actively pumping out lava, that the moon is literally turning itself inside out! How could the human race obtain such pictures? The Galileo spacecraft has orbited Jupiter for 8 years collecting data and sending it back to Earth. The probe was dropped into the atmosphere of Jupiter to get readings. The probe had to withstand extremely hot temperatures and pressure. It's amazing how man can make something  like this and have trust that it will work.

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