Tvashtar Paterae compose an active
volcanic region of
Jupiter's moon
Io located near its north pole. It is a series of
paterae, or
volcanic craters. It is named after
Tvashtar, the
Hindu
Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism.Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...
god of
blacksmiths.
[ Tvashtar was discovered in IRTF images in November 26 1999, several hours after a Galileo flyby. Images taken with the ESO 3.6m telescope and its adaptive optics in September 1999 revealed the presence of faint hot spot (labeled 990930D). The outburst was studied by the ]Galileo spacecraft
''Galileo'' was an American robotic space probe that studied the planet Jupiter and its moons, as well as the asteroids Gaspra and Ida. Named after the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, it consisted of an orbiter and an entry probe. It was ...
over several years. During this time, a long, high curtain of lava was seen to erupt from one patera, a lake of superheated silicate lava erupted in the largest patera, and finally a plume of gas burst out, rising above Io and blanketing areas as far away as .New Horizons
''New Horizons'' is an Interplanetary spaceflight, interplanetary space probe that was launched as a part of NASA's New Frontiers program. Engineered by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and the Southwest Research ...
probe as it went past Jupiter ''en route'' to Pluto. The probe observed an enormous high plume from the volcano, with an as-yet unexplained filamentary structure made clearly visible by the background light from the sun.Mission Photos: An Eruption on Io
(New Horizons) Retrieved on February 28, 2007.
See also
*
List of extraterrestrial volcanoes
*
Tvashtar
References
External links
*
"VOLCANIC ACTIVITY AT TVASHTAR CATENA, IO", ''Lunar and Planetary Science XXXV (2004)''
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Volcanoes of Io (moon)
Active volcanoes
Surface features of Io (moon)
New Horizons