On Dec. 27, 2024, NASA’s Juno spacecraft witnessed the most intense eruption ever recorded on Io, Jupiter’s most volcanically active moon.

On Dec. 27, 2024, NASA’s Juno spacecraft witnessed the most intense eruption ever recorded on Io, Jupiter’s most volcanically active moon. The eruption spanned 65,000 sq km (larger than Earth’s Lake Superior) near the south pole and released 140-260 TW of energy, > 6x the total energy of all power plants on Earth.

3 other hotspots also lit up. Scientists interpret this as a single event affecting an underground network of massive, interconnected magma chambers.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-juno-mission-spots-most-powerful-volcanic-activity-on-io-to-date/
1/n

Please take a look at these earlier threads for some more info on the geology of Io.

https://fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/113646097353360432
https://fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/112295807752314128
2/n

Io as shown in the 1984 film "2010: The Year We Make Contact".
In the book, Arthur C Clarke wrote:

"Io is Mordor: look up Part Three. There’s a passage about “rivers of molten rock that wound their way… until they cooled and lay like twisted dragon-shapes vomited from the tormented earth.” That’s a perfect description: how did Tolkien know, a quarter century before anyone ever saw a picture of Io? Talk about Nature imitating Art.'"

https://ia600800.us.archive.org/7/items/SpaceOdyssey_819/2010_Odyssey_Two_-_Arthur_C_Clarke.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordor
#Io #Juno
3/n

Io as shown in the 1984 film "2010: The Year We Make Contact".
In the book, Arthur C Clarke wrote:

"Io is Mordor: look up Part Three. There’s a passage about “rivers of molten rock that wound their way… until they cooled and lay like twisted dragon-shapes vomited from the tormented earth.” That’s a perfect description: how did Tolkien know, a quarter century before anyone ever saw a picture of Io? Talk about Nature imitating Art.'"

https://ia600800.us.archive.org/7/items/SpaceOdyssey_819/2010_Odyssey_Two_-_Arthur_C_Clarke.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordor
#Io #Juno
3/n

More from Arthur C Clarke's book "2010" -

"Some of the sulphur lakes are hot enough to glow, but most of the light comes from electrical discharges. Every few minutes the whole landscape seems to explode, as if a giant photoflash has gone off above it. And that’s probably not a bad analogy; there are millions of amps flowing in the flux-tube linking Io and Jupiter, and every so often there’s a breakdown. Then you get the biggest lightning flash in the Solar System."

https://ia600800.us.archive.org/7/items/SpaceOdyssey_819/2010_Odyssey_Two_-_Arthur_C_Clarke.pdf
4/n

@AkaSci if only our 2010 were as cool as the novels', no crewed missions to Jupiter in the foreseeable future here....

@Lazarou
We suppose Arthur C Clarke was a little ahead of his time.

From his 1962 book — "Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry Into the Limits of the Possible" - his science and technology predictions from 1970 to 2100.

http://www.markrkelly.com/Blog/2019/10/31/arthur-c-clarke-profiles-of-the-future-1962-1999/

@Lazarou
We suppose Arthur C Clarke was a little ahead of his time.

From his 1962 book — "Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry Into the Limits of the Possible" - his science and technology predictions from 1970 to 2100.

http://www.markrkelly.com/Blog/2019/10/31/arthur-c-clarke-profiles-of-the-future-1962-1999/

@AkaSci "Immortality by 2100"

Bless, I would like to think it, but no.

@Lazarou
We suppose Arthur C Clarke was a little ahead of his time.

From his 1962 book — "Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry Into the Limits of the Possible" - his science and technology predictions from 1970 to 2100.

http://www.markrkelly.com/Blog/2019/10/31/arthur-c-clarke-profiles-of-the-future-1962-1999/

@Lazarou @AkaSci
Tech predictions are tough. In Clarke's novel _Imperial Earth_, published in 1975 and set in 2276, computers weren't able to solve the pentominoes puzzle.
In 1976, my friend and fellow 6502 Group member, Bob Ulshafer wrote a pentominoes solver in 6502 assembly language.

@Lazarou@mastodon.social @AkaSci@fosstodon.org
I’d like us to hold off on immortality until we have solved a few other things first. One of the few things that give me hope for the future is that one day, eventually, Rupert Murdoch will be dead.

@AkaSci @Lazarou

Cetacean languages?