JPL News wrote: “Galileo makes two daring passes less than 620
km above Io on October 11 and November 25, 1999. In November
Galileo might even pass through the plume of Pillan Patera,
making it the first spacecraft ever to fly through an alien
volcano.” NASA scientists are upholding a long tradition of
misinterpreting observations from their space probes. This time
they are jeopardising one of their most successful missions.
Long ago in 1979, when the so-called volcanoes of Io were first
discovered, Professor Thomas Gold of Cornell University wrote
that they are actually the site of powerful electric discharges.
NASA geologists paid no attention. Jupiter is still capable of
hurling a few thunderbolts! “The biggest mystery about Io’s
volcanoes is why they’re so hot,” says Bill Smythe, a co-
investigator on JPL’s NIMS team. “At 1800 K, the vents are about
1/3 the temperature of the surface of the sun!“ The temperature
measured by Galileo is an average based on the sharpest
resolution of its instruments. If scien