NASA's Juno spacecraft came within 1,500 km (930 miles) of the surface of Jupiter's moon Io in two recent flybys. That's close enough to reveal new details on the surface of this moon, the most volcanic object in the solar system.

An image of Jupiter's moon Io, captured during the Juno spacecraft's 57th flyby of Jupiter, in December 2023, captured an amazing look at Loki Patera, an immense volcanic lake in the moon's northern hemisphere. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill)

NASA’s Juno spacecraft recently spotted a glassy-smooth lava lake amid the volcanic hellscape of Jupiter’s moon Io.

"Perhaps [the] most striking example of this disparity can be found with the central cyclone at Jupiter's north pole," Steve Levin, Juno's project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, said in the same statement.

A new animation reveals an enormous lava lake on the surface of Jupiter's moon Io. The close-up view comes from NASA's Juno spacecraft, which swept within 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) of the volcanic surface of Io in December 2023 and January 2024.

NASA's Juno spacecraft found Io’s surface is as smooth as glass, just like volcanically created obsidian glass

Giant lava lake found on Jupiter moon

NASA's Juno spacecraft was dispatched on a mission in 2011 to study the planet Jupiter. It has beamed back some truly stunning images and valuable data on the solar system's largest planet. While in the neighborhood,