MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE JET PROPULSION LABORATORY CALIFORNIA
INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE
ADMINISTRATION PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011
Contact: Martha Heil (818) 354-0850 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEOctober
26, 2000 JUPITER'S VOLCANIC MOON IO: STRANGE SHAPES IN A
SIZZLING WORLD The volcanoes on Jupiter's moon Io are like
exotic dishes: they're hot, spicy, and have unfamiliar
ingredients, according to new data from NASA's Galileo
spacecraft. Galileo's near infrared mapping spectrometer
instrument has found extremely high temperatures inside the
volcanoes, which are more abundant than previously believed and
contain surprising substances. The spectrometer detects heat
from lava and shows the location of different materials on Io's
surface. The volcano Pele, named for the mythological Polynesian
fire goddess, showed much higher temperatures inside its volcano
than any found now on Earth -- about 1,500 Celsius (more than
2,700 Fahrenheit). "One of the most interesting questions