Jupiter moon 'holds magma ocean'

BBC News - Jupiter moon 'holds magma ocean': "Io is the most volcanic world in the Solar System and scientists think they now have a better idea of why that is.

The moon of Jupiter erupts about 100 times more lava on to its surface each year than does Earth.

A re-assessment of data from Nasa's Galileo probe suggests all this activity is being fed from a giant magma ocean under Io's crust.

Researchers tell Science magazine that this blisteringly hot reservoir is probably some 50km (30 miles) thick.

And that figure is a minimum. It could be much, much thicker, says the study's lead author, Krishan Khurana, who is affiliated to UCLA's Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics.

'When scientists first started looking at the images of Io from the Pioneer and Voyager spacecraft in the late 70s, the moon appeared so alien,' he told the BBC."