- Who
- Unknown
- Where
- (The eruption occurred near Surt, an active volcano on Io.)
- When
In February 2001 a volcanic eruption occurred on Io, a satellite of Jupiter, with an estimated output of 78,000 Gigawatts. The observations were made with the WM Keck II Telescope, Hawaii, and published in the journal Icarus in November 2002.
For comparison, the 1992 eruption of Mt Etna, Sicily, was estimated at just 12 Gigawatts.
The eruption came from the Surt volcano, on Io’s Jupiter-facing hemisphere. During its peak, its output almost matched the eruptive power of all of Io’s active volcanoes combined.
