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A NASA spacecraft is preparing for the first in a series of close encounters with the most volcanic region in the solar system. Juno will fly past Jupiter’s moon Io on Thursday, December 15.

The trick will be the same Over the next year and a half, Juno made nine flybys of Io. Both encounters take place 930 miles (1,500 km) from the lunar surface.

July 5 Juno captures a bright infrared image of Io from a distance of 50,000 miles (80,000 km). The brightest spots in this image correspond to the hot temperatures of Io, which has hundreds of volcanoes, some of which can send fountains of lava tens of miles into the air.

Scientists will use Juno’s observations of Io to learn more about the network of volcanoes and how its eruptions interact with Jupiter. The Moon is constantly pulled by Jupiter’s massive gravitational pull.

“The team is really excited that Juno’s extended mission will include the study of Jupiter’s moons.” With each subsequent flyby, we’ve been able to gain a lot of new information,” said Scott Bolton, Juno’s principal investigator at the San Southwest Research Institute. Antonio, the report says.

“Juno’s sensors were designed to study Jupiter, but we’re excited to see how well they can do double duty by observing Jupiter’s moons.”

The spacecraft recently on September 29. A new image of Jupiter’s northernmost cyclone has been captured. Jupiter’s atmosphere is dominated by hundreds of cyclones, many of which are centered at the planet’s poles.

The Juno spacecraft has been orbiting Jupiter since 2016 to reveal more information about the giant planet and focus on flybys of Jupiter’s moons.

Juno 2021 flew by Jupiter’s moon Ganymede and Europa earlier this year. The spacecraft used its instruments to probe beneath the icy crusts of both moons and collect data on Europa’s interior, which is believed to have a salty ocean.

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The ice sheets that make up Europa’s surface are 10 to 15 miles (16 to 24 km) thick, and the ocean is 40 to 100 miles (64 to 161 km) deep.

The data and images captured by Juno will help inform two separate missions to Jupiter’s moons over the next two years: the European Space Agency’s Jupiter IC satellite explorer. NASA’s “Europa Clipper” mission.

The first one should be launched in 2023. In April, it will spend three years studying Jupiter and its three icy moons, Ganymede, Callisto and Europa, in depth. All three moons are thought to have oceans in their icy crusts, so scientists want to investigate whether Ganymede’s ocean is habitable.

Europa Clipper will launch in 2024 for a special series of 50 flybys after arriving in 2030. Finally, going from 1,700 miles (2,736 km) above the moon’s surface to 16 miles (26 km) above the moon’s surface could help scientists determine if there really is an internal ocean and if the moon could support life.