Douglas Isbell

Headquarters, Washington, DC November 5, 1997

(Phone: 202/358-1753)

Jane Platt
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
(Phone: 818/354-5011)

RELEASE: 97-257

GALILEO FINDS ARIZONA-SIZED VOLCANIC DEPOSIT ON IO

Observations taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft five months

apart reveal a new dark spot the size of Arizona on Jupiter's moon
Io, indicating that dramatic volcanic activity occurred during
that time.

"This is the largest surface change on Io observed by Galileo

during its entire two-year tour of the Jovian system," said
Galileo imaging team member Dr. Alfred McEwen, a research
scientist at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

The visible change took place during the five months between
Galileo's seventh and tenth orbits of Jupiter. The change is
manifested as a dark spot about 249 miles in diameter, surrounding
a volcanic center named Pillan Patera, which is named after the
South American god of thunder, fire and volcanoes. Dark features
at the center of the deposits may be new lava flows.

These changes appear in images taken by the Solid State

Imaging system aboard Galileo, with marked differences between the
pictures taken on April 4, 1997 and September 19, 1997. In June of
1997 an active plume was observed over Pillan by Galileo and the
Hubble Space Telescope with a height of 75 miles, and both Galileo
and ground-based astronomers observed an intense hot spot.

"Most of the volcanic plume deposits on Io show up as white,

yellow or red due to sulfur compounds. However, this new deposit
is gray, which tells us it has a different composition, possibly
richer in silicates than the other regions," McEwen explained.
"While scientists knew that silicate volcanism existed on Io from
high temperatures, this may provide clues as to the composition of
the silicates, which in turn tells us about Io's evolution."

"Io is probably primarily composed of silicates, which is the

type of volcanic rock found on Earth, " McEwen added, "but the
extreme volcanism of Io may have led to the creation of silicate
compositions that are unusual on Earth."

The Io images showing the changes in Pillan Patera also

reveal alterations in the plume deposit of Pele, the large red
oval southwest of Pillan, which may indicate that both plumes were
active at the same time and interacted with one another. A dark
region southwest of Pele, which appears similar to the Pillan
deposits, has been present since the Voyager flybys in 1979.

Io is the most volcanically active body in the Solar System.

Scientists hope to learn more about the fiery satellite when
Galileo continues its studies over the next two years, during a
mission extension known as the Galileo Europa Mission. The
extended mission will include eight additional encounters of
Europa, four of Callisto, and two close Io flybys in late 1999,
depending on spacecraft health. Galileo will pass very close to
Pillan Patera in the first of the two Io flybys, so high-
resolution images can be acquired over a small portion of this
area.

Galileo was launched in 1989 and entered orbit around Jupiter

on Dec. 7, 1995. The final satellite encounter of its two-year
primary mission will occur on Thursday, Nov. 6, 1997 at 3:32 p.m.
EST, when the spacecraft swoops over Europa at an altitude of
1,269 miles.

"The Galileo Orbiter is performing flawlessly and all 11 of

its sophisticated science instruments and the radio science
investigations are still providing excellent data," said Galileo
Project Manager Bill O'Neil of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
(JPL), Pasadena, CA. "A great bounty of Jupiter system science has
been obtained and the continuing study of these data will surely
add many important discoveries. While not all of the original
objectives could be met due to the antenna failure, I believe that
the overall science return from Galileo will easily exceed what
was envisioned at project inception 20 years ago, because our team
of scientists and engineers has done such a superb job of
capturing the most important observations."

The Galileo mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Office of

Space Science, Washington, DC. JPL is an operating division of
California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA.

Images of Io and other data received from Galileo are posted

on the Galileo home page on the World Wide Web at URL:

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo

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