NASA Mission To Explore An Ocean Of Lava On Jupiter’s Volcanic Moon

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There are 79 known natural satellites of Jupiter.
The most massive of the natural satellites are the four Galilean moons, which were independently discovered in 1610 by
Galileo Galilei

The four largest moons of Jupiter—Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto.
Recently NASA has started focusing on these Galilean satellites and planstosendprobestoexplore them

Io Volcano Observer
Io Volcano Observer (IVO) is a proposed low-cost, outer-planet mission to explore Jupiter’s moon Io to understand tidal heating as a fundamental planetary process.

The main science goals are to understand (A) how and where tidal heat is generated inside Io, (B) how tidal heat is transported to the surface, and (C) how Io is evolving.
These results are expected to have direct implications for the thermal history of Europa and Ganymede as well as provide insights into other tidally heated worlds such as Titan and Enceladus. The IVO data may also improve our understanding of magma oceans and thus the early evolution of the Earth and Moon.

IVO would be the first mission dedicated to Io.
The a scale of volcanism we’ve never directly witnessed on Earth—and don’t want to, either—but we can directly observe it on Io
Io is also suspected to have a magma ocean hidden beneath its surface.

That’s crucial because the cores of Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars and the Moon are thought to have formed from cooled and solidified magma oceans. So studying Io could therefore offer a shortcut to peering back in time at how the Solar System formed. It could also teach planetary scientists more about ancient volcanic and tectonic processes on Earth and other planets.

Io is in a constant gravitational tug-of-war with Jupiter and the other big moons, so much so that it changes shape during its 42-hour orbit. It’s thought that the constant stretching and squishing causes frictional “tidal heating” so great that an ocean of magma is created under the surface.

IVO would be the first mission dedicated to exploring Io. It’s so far only a potential NASA mission, which could launch in late 2028 or 2029 and reach Io 3.5 years later.
It’s tag-line is “follow the heat” because Io is just so intensely volcanic.

IVO’s tour of Io has been designed to accomplish various geophysical objectives plus get lots of great data on its vulcanology.
Once at Io, IVO would perform 10 close flybys.

It’s Io’s largest volcanic depression, which contains a lake of lava. Loki Patera is the most energetic hotspot on Io—a long term hotspot

Trident: will explore Triton, a unique and highly active icy moon of Neptune.
VERITAS (Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy): will map Venus’ surface to determine the planet’s geologic history.
DAVINCI+ (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging Plus): will analyzeVenus’ atmosphere to understand how it formed and evolved and determine whether Venus ever had an ocean.