Where do you think alien life is most probable in our solar system? Remember, everywhere we look on Earth - we find life.
Mars?
Enceladus?
Titan?
Io?
Europa?
All of the above?
Somewhere else entirely?
Reblog, reply or submit your answer. I’ll make a post commenting and responding to all of the replies when I have a sufficient amount.
Jupiter and its moons; Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto.
One of the first photos that got me lots of followers was this one right here, of Io. Seriously, I might just need to do a whole week (maybe in the Summer - I’m waaay to busy right now) dedicated to the different moons in our solar system.
I did do a week dedicated to Io in 2010.
Four of Jupiter’s lovely moons. Remember, Jupiter has 64 moons that we know of so far.
Family Portrait.
Jupiter and 4 of its moons; Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. Discovered in 1610 by Galileo in his hopes to prove that there were other planets in our solar system that revolve around our sun.
Jupiter’s moon Io
Taken by the Galileo spacecraft.
Io: This is the Culann Patera (the greenish features above center) with associated lava flows and red volcanic plume deposits.
Click here for a list of all the volcanic features on Io.
Io is the fourth largest moon in the Solar System.
Jupiter’s Ganymede is the largest; our moon is the fifth largest.
Io was named after a priestess of Hera, Io. Hera was one of Zeus’ lovers.
Jupiter’s four Galilean moons are named after a differnet Zeus lover.
Io has over 400 active volcanoes making it the most geologically active object in the solar system. Excluding Earth. Earth has between 1,500-3,000.
Galileo discovered Io January 8, 1610. This discovery, with the other 3 Galilean satellites, furthered the adoption of the Copernican Model of the Solar System, the development of Kepler’s laws of motion, and the first measurement of the speed of light.
Io also has over 100 mountains; some peak higher than Mount Everest.
Io’s volcanism is responsible for many of that satellite’s unique features. Its volcanic plumes and lava flows produce large surface changes and paint the surface in various shades of yellow, red, white, black, and green, largely due to allotropes and compounds of sulfur.
Io: Surface map.
Voyager 1 was expected to find many impact craters when first observing Io (and would have provided clues to Io’s age). Instead, what they found was smooth plains dotted with mountains, various different pits, and volcanic lava flows. This world is very alive.
Io: mosaic of it’s south polar region compiled by Voyager 1
The mountain at the bottom is Haemus Mons, and it’s 32,000 ft tall.
The partly black-filled caldera far left is Creidne Patera. The black layers is where sulfur or silicates are probably still molten; the brown area has solidified.
