Ice Cubes in Hell

Science News

The Next Steps Toward a Sustainable Planet

Environmental activist Laurie David gives a state of the union on the environment. 05.16.2008

AIDS "Dissident" Seeks Redemption... and a Cure for Cancer

Biologist Peter Duesberg was all but banished from science for his views on HIV. 05.15.2008

Chimps Agree: A Bird in Hand Is Worth Two in the Bush

Chimpanzees are downright conservative when it comes to trading for better food. 05.14.2008

Movie Camera to the Stars

The Earth's fastest telescope aims to make the best sky map ever created. 05.13.2008

Wildlife Conservation 2.0

A new software-based approach may be the key to saving thousands of species. 05.12.2008

The Wonderful World of E. Coli

Carl Zimmer looks inside the dangers—and wonders—of one remarkable bacterium. 05.09.2008

One Hundred Movies on Just One Disk

Holographic digital storage will let consumers store a DVD library on a single disk. 05.08.2008

Want to Help the Environment? Eat Insects.

A group of experts endorse bugs as a nutritious and sustainable food source. 05.07.2008

Space / Solar System

Mercury's Secrets Revealed

More than 1,000 new images of the planet reveal startling results. 04.08.2008

Mission to the Forgotten Planets

Before the Pluto fiasco, two asteroids were stripped of planet status. 03.11.2008

98. Twin Probes Watch Sun’s Fury in 3-D

01.15.2008

67. Mars Rover Delves Into Crater

01.11.2008

Inside the Search for Extraterrestrial Life

It starts with water and ends with intelligent aliens—hopefully.12.25.2007

Copernicus the Surprise Genius

The man who proved heliocentrism never thought his ideas would amount to much.12.11.2007

7 Things You Didn't Know About Moon Rocks

Cockroaches ate the rocks, proving their safety.11.12.2007

How to Build a Mars Rover

Armed with only a few pages of Discover's Space Travel special issue, you can construct your own li'l planetary explorer. 10.03.2007

The Moon Passes Gas

Even a rock with no atmosphere needs to let it out sometimes.09.24.2007

02.01.2001

by Kathy A. Svitil

Photo by University of Arizona/NASA/JPL

A typical day on Jupiter's moon Io is a sojourn into Dante's Inferno, complete with flowing lava and blasts of hot ash. Now it appears that equally nasty ice dwells amid the fire, says planetary scientist Alfred McEwen of the University of Arizona. Studying recent images from the Galileo spacecraft (right), McEwen found that much of Io's surface is covered with a fluffy blanket of snow, up to half a mile thick in some areas. But unlike the stuff that piles up in your driveway, Io's blizzards are composed of sulfur dioxide and other noxious, sulfur-rich molecules.

The downfall originates in the gas plumes that spew from hundreds of erupting volcanoes. Although Io is the most volcanically active body in the solar system, temperatures plummet to about -280 degrees Fahrenheit a short distance from the hot spots. Sulfur dioxide, which freezes at about -225 degrees, quickly turns to ice, bringing together the worst of both worlds. "The lava flows can come within meters of the snow before vaporizing it," says McEwen.

Daily Dose