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A R C H I V E S

Light from the setting Sun falls across the Loki Volcanic Region on Jupiter's moon Io, in this image taken by NASA's Galileo Spacecraft on October, 16, 2001.

The image was taken to examine the relative depths and heights of several Surface Features visible in the Region. Galileo's camera caught the large Volcanic Crater, or "Patera", of Loki, near the Terminator (such as the boundary between night and day). The frame also shows a few smaller Volcanic Craters plus some shadows cast by the high Peaks of Io's Mountains.

Shadows cast by the low Sun often reveal some interesting Topography associated with Loki, such as the existence of a Plateau in the center of the Patera, but the near absence of shadows in this Region actually surprised Galileo scientists, as they had expected much more pronounced Topography near Loki.

Another surprising aspect of this picture is that Surface Features whose color has been seen and recognized as black in previous both Voyager and Galileo images of Loki, such as the dark Lava Flows visible inside the Patera, are here brighter than their surroundings. The best explanation is that the shiny, Glassy Surfaces of chilled Lava Flows look extremely dark when the Sun is directly overhead, but they reflect the Sun's light comparatively well when it shines at a low angle, in a similar manner to the reflective Surfaces of bodies of water.

Other Volcanic Paterae visible in this image show the same unusual reflectance as seen at Loki. Some of them are being viewed at such an angle that these reflections from Lava Flows are the brightest features of the whole image. This frame, eventually, tells us that Lava Flows on Io chill quickly and form Glassy Surfaces.

This picture has a resolution of about 1,1 Km (approx. 0,7 miles) per picture element. North is to the right (Dx) of the frame.

This frame has been colorized in Absolute Natural Colors (such as the colors that a human eye would actually perceive if someone were onboard the Galileo Spacecraft and then looked down, towards the Surface of Io), by using an original technique created - and, in time, dramatically improved - by the Lunar Explorer Italia Team.