The Juno mission offers an aerial view of a mountain and lava lake on Jupiter’s moon Io.

Data from recent flybys of Jupiter’s moon And about received Juno mission from NASA were converted into an animation showing a mountain and a lava lake.

Other recent results presented by Juno’s principal investigator, Scott Boltonincludes updated information on Jupiter’s polar cyclones and water abundance.

Juno made very close flybys of Io in December 2023 and February 2024, coming within about 1,500 kilometers of the surface, allowing it to obtain first close-up images northern latitudes of the Moon.

“Io is full of volcanoes, and we’ve captured some of them in action,” Bolton said in a statement. “We also obtained data on a 200-kilometer lava lake called Loki Patera. There are details showing islands built into the middle of a potentially magmatic lake surrounded by hot lava. The specular reflection of the lake captured by our instruments suggests that some parts of Io’s surface smooth as glassglass-like obsidian created by volcanism on Earth.”

One of the goals of the mission is to collect data to understand abundance of water on Jupiter. To do this, the Juno science team is not looking for liquid water, but rather quantifying the presence of oxygen and hydrogen molecules in Jupiter’s atmosphere. An accurate assessment is essential to piecing together the mystery of the formation of our solar system.