NASA's Juno data points to new volcano on Jupiter moon Io
Washington, July 14 : Using data collected by NASA's Juno spacecraft, scientists have got clues to a previously undiscovered volcano on the Jupiter moon Io.
With its Jovian InfraRed Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument, the Juno spacecraft found a new heat source close to the south pole of Io, NASA said on Saturday.
"The new Io hotspot JIRAM picked up is about 300 kilometres from the nearest previously mapped hotspot," Alessandro Mura, a Juno co-investigator from the National Institute for Astrophysics in Rome, Italy, said in a statement.
"We are not ruling out movement or modification of a previously discovered hot spot, but it is difficult to imagine one could travel such a distance and still be considered the same feature," Mura added.
The infrared data were collected on December 16, 2017, when Juno was about 470,000 kilometers away from the moon.
The Juno team will continue to evaluate data collected on the December 16 flyby, as well as JIRAM data that will be collected during future (and even closer) flybys of Io, NASA said.
Past NASA missions of exploration that have visited the Jovian system (Voyagers 1 and 2, Galileo, Cassini and New Horizons), along with ground-based observations, have located over 150 active volcanoes on Io so far.
Scientists estimate that about another 250 or so are waiting to be discovered.
Juno has logged nearly 235 million kilometres since entering Jupiter's orbit on July 4, 2016.
Juno's 13th science pass will be on July 16, the US space agency said.
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England sticking with Key, McCullum and Stokes despite Ashes humbling
London (AP): England is not sacking anybody following the 4-1 Ashes loss in Australia.
A review of the tour by the England and Wales Cricket Board, announced within hours of the final match in January, was concluded on Monday. Firing people would “be the easy thing to do,” ECB chief executive Richard Gould said but he insisted, "This is not the time to throw everything out."
Managing director Rob Key, coach Brendon McCullum and captain Ben Stokes kept their jobs after the best England side to go to Australia in 14 years lost the Ashes in 11 days with two games to spare.
“Moving people on can sometimes be the easy thing to do. That's not the route that we're going to take,” Gould said. “I've seen the driving ambition and determination that we're lucky enough to have within our leadership group to take the lessons from the Ashes and move forward.”
Gould previously was the chief executive of Bristol City soccer club and said the ECB would not follow the same route as soccer's hire-and-fire culture.
“Cricket is a very unique sport in that it takes a team of leadership ... it's not like football where there's a single point of failure or success with a manager," he said. He added the ECB would not “select or deselect management based on a popularity campaign.”
The main criticisms of England's tour were poor preparation, player misbehavior, and selection mistakes.
At a press conference at Lord's, Gould and Key said McCullum and Stokes have not had a “bust up,” they did not want McCullum to “completely change” but “to evolve,” the behavior of some players was “unprofessional,” there will be more consequences for underperforming, and a commitment to “better long-term planning” ahead of major test series.
Some changes were already implemented for the Twenty20 World Cup, where England reached the semifinals. Gould implied that performance saved McCullum.
Key acknowledged that England supporters would be disappointed to see the management team go unpunished.
“I know people want punishment and that people then should be sacked for that,” Key said. “That doesn't mean we don't feel like we've gone through some serious pain: Brendon, myself, Ben. It's been as tough a time as I think I've had.”
