Bibcode
Martín-Luis, F.; Kidger, M.; Anguita, F.; Llorca, J.; Ruiz, J.
Bibliographical reference
II International GTC Workshop: Science with GTC 1st-light Instruments and the LMT (Eds. A. M. Hidalgo-Gámez, J. J. González, J. M. Rodríguez Espinosa, and S. Torres-Peimbert) Revista Mexicana de Astronomía y Astrofísica (Serie de Conferencias) Vol. 24, pp. 262-263 (2005) (http://www.astroscu.unam.mx/~rmaa/)
Advertised on:
12
2005
Citations
0
Refereed citations
0
Description
Vulcanism was first detected on Io in 1978 by Voyager 1. Since then it
has been recognised that Io is the most volcanically active body in the
Solar System. Although the initial volcanic activity observed was in the
form of SO[2] geysers and sulphur lakes, the Galileo mission has
detected temperatures as high as 1800K on the surface, far in excess of
the temperatures that can be explained by sulphur-driven activity.
Galileo observations suggest that silicate vulcanism is the principal
driver of activity, even though the temperatures measured are even in
excess of those measured in terrestrial silicate vulcanism, but the
relationship between silicate and sulphur-driven activity is not well
understood. We propose a project to monitor low-temperature vulcanism on
Io systematically, using CanariCam on the GTC. This project will allow a
better understanding of the mechanisms of sulphur-driven vulcanism, and
the relative importance of silicate and sulphur-driven activity.