Tidally-driven volcanism and mass loss at Jupiter’s moon Io

Tides are a key internal energy source for numerous Solar System moons as well as exoplanets, driving their chemical evolution, geological activity, and even habitability. At Jupiter’s moon Io, tides power dramatic volcanism accompanied by outgassing at a rate of thousands of kg/s. Io orbits deep within Jupiter’s magnetosphere, resulting in mass-loss from these outgassed species that impacts Io’s chemical evolution and populates large-scale plasma and neutral particle structures around Jupiter. The processes of tides, mass-loss, and chemical evolution are relevant to many worlds both within our Solar System and beyond, and Io can serve as a template for better understanding them more broadly. Yet despite decades of study, major questions remain about Io’s formation, evolution, and even its current state. In this talk I will discuss our current understanding of Io, focusing on recent results from telescope and spacecraft observations, and will highlight unanswered questions and prospects for addressing…