Jupiter's moon has splendid dunes
Scientists have long wondered how Jupiter's innermost moon, Io, has meandering ridges as grand as any that can be seen in movies like"Dune." Now, a Rutgers research study has provided a new explanation of how dunes can form even on a surface as icy and roiling as Io's.
Current scientific understanding dictates that dunes, by their nature, are hills or ridges of sand piled up by the wind. And scientists in previous studies of Io, while describing its surface as containing some dune-like features, concluded the ridges could not be dunes since the forces from winds on Io are weak due to the moon's low-density atmosphere.
The Galileo mission, which lasted from 1989 -- 2003, logged so many scientific firsts that researchers to this day are still studying the data it collected. One of the major insights gleaned from the data was the high extent of volcanic activity on Io -- so much so that its volcanoes repeatedly and rapidly resurface the little world.
Once the researchers devised a mechanism by which the dunes could form, they looked to photos of Io's surface taken by the Galileo spacecraft for more proof. The spacing of the crests and the height-to-width ratios they observed were consistent with trends for dunes seen on Earth and other planets.
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