Lava Fountain on Jupiter's Io

A lava fountain shooting over a kilometer high has been discovered on Jupiter 's moon Io . The robot Galileo spacecraft orbiting Jupiter photographed the volcanic eruption during its close flyby of the moon late last month . The fountain is visible in the above mosaic of images from the flyby . The lava plume was so bright it saturated Galileo's camera, and so has been digitally reconstructed in false color. The hot lava appears to be shooting from a 20-kilometer long canyon on Io's active surface .