Atmospherics

[stoutfellow]

Here is a neat article from Centauri Dreams about the atmosphere of Io. The atmosphere is composed of sulfur dioxide, spewed out by the nine or so volcanoes on the moon. But when Io passes into Jupiter's shadow - which happens once every Io-day - its temperature drops below the freezing point for SO2, and the atmosphere collapses; it resublimes when the moon moves back into the sunlight.

"The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine," as J. B. S. Haldane put it.