Io growing an Atmosphere like earths?

I actually wish I had a link to this, but this was something I was watching on the Discovery channel, so of course it is "dumbed" down, and I didn't catch any references, but I think it is paramount none the less.

It is true, apparently Io is creating an atmosphere, much like earth's in its infant stages.

This has been shown true by the extremly beautiful and brilliant Auroras that cover the ENTIRE planet, veiling it in a curtain of blues and purples.

As the Volcanoes spew material (sulfer dioxide I think...) as far as 60 miles from the surface, it disperses and not all of it is apparently settling to the ground.

Now my comments on this, are that this must mean Io is a newly formed planet, unless evidence shows that its maintained a very thin atmosphere (some 1/60ths that of earth's) through out the ages...which I don't think is the case.

It would seem that Io is a newer satellite, being that its atmosphere stage is very young.

This makes Io the 6th planet//satellite in our solar system to have an atmosphere following Venus, Earth, Mars, Titan, and Triton...correct me if I missed any.

We all know the gas giants are all atmosphere so don't bother with those

We really need to let our disputes go, and get off this rock, there is so much in just our own solar system that is ripe for tinkering and exploring, why are we wasting time here?

Anyone cares to post comments, or revisions//corrections be my guest....mustn't stop the learning process

Sincerely,
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Unfortunately, these other atmospheres are toxic to our form of life. But, you are right we need to get off this rock and do some terraforming on other planets.

Nice post FM

I`m in to astronomy a bit and regulary get Astronomy now magazine, here`s what they said about Io`s atmosphere (tried to get a link to it but could n`t find the article on the web)

"The atmosphere of Io varies density and composition. It is dominated by volcanic eruptions which pump gas in to its near vacuum enviroment. But the atmosphere also ebbs and flows with fluctuations in a complex set of electrical currentsflowing between Io and Jupiter."
Quote from full article "at its densest its still equivalent to a really decent labatory vacuum" this is from data taken from the galileo`s instruments

Io also has over 600 active volcanoes and is perhaps the most active place in the solar system, although Titan and its atmosphere are also intriguing

Theres a great artice attached about europa and how that might support life.

spaceflightnow.com...





[Edited on 20-1-2003 by cassini]

Yeah I can't wait for Cassini to reach Saturn.

No these atmospheres are only currently toxic to our form of life. Mars's has mostly CO2 which could be broken down into O2, and Titan is mostly Nitrogen, so who knows where you'll get the O2 there, but Io is spewing out a sulfer oxide which was what our own atmosphere was sorta like in its beginnings, and bacteria formed that converted the SO2 I think it was into O2 by product, and used the Sulfer to make its "fuel" for life...these little critters still exist, as those like toad stool thing in the ocean, I don't recall the name

Anyways...Io's atmosphere will probably never be like Earth's even billions of yeas from now, but it's interesting that there is another satellite out there that is showing signs of "life-like" paterns.

As for Europa, I was just reading on that, looking for pics from Jupiters clouds, which I can't find, because NASA is apparently so wrapped up in the science, they never figured to take a few pictures from the galileo probe as it was floating down into jupiter's atmosphere those bastards.

Don't they have any idea of what an incredible pic that would be, if they took a pic from about 30 miles into Jupiter's atmosphere?

Anyways...Europa has everything it needs for life, all they need to do is make sure it indeed has an ocean, for it has everything else, internal heat, water, not much left to need, except that the water be liquid, which they're still unsure of

Anyways, if any nasa official reads this, please take a damn pic of jupiter from WITHIN the planet, like 10-30-60 miles down, that sorta thing, so we can see what it is like to be ON jupiter, not just see the stupid planet from 200,000 miles away.

If I wanted to see that I'd just get a damn telescope, you losers.

Sincerely,
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