Reiden Patera Explained

Reiden Patera is a volcanic feature on Jupiter's moon Io. It was first detected by the Galileo SSI Team during the spacecraft Galileo's first orbit around Jupiter, initially detected as a hotspot. It was once thought that the activity there had stopped or waned below the limits of the spacecraft's Solid State Imager or Near-Infrared Mapping Spectrometer.[1] However, it was noticed in 2002 that Reiden Patera has darkened considerably since the 24th orbit of Galileo. It has been spouting bright red pyroclastic deposits of its own.[2] It is located at -13.4°N -235.45°W and is 70 kilometers in diameter. It is named after a Japanese thunder god ("Raijin" in current English nomenclature).[3] Asha Patera can be found to the east, and Kami-Nari Patera can be found to the north.[4]

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Lopes-Gautier_IoVolc_Icarus99.pdf . es.ucsc.edu . October 18, 2007 .
  2. Web site: 1954.pdf . lpi.usra.edu . October 18, 2007 .
  3. Web site: IO NOMENCLATURE . lnfm1.sai.msu.su . October 18, 2007 .
  4. NASA World Wind 1.4. NASA Ames Research Center, 2007.