NASA New Horizons: Volcanic Eruption Plume on Jupiter's moon Io - Video

Incredible footage of an eruption on Io, Jupiter’s third moon, considered the most volcanic place in the solar system, has been released by the US space agency.

The video, taken by the New Horizons spacecraft, pictures a drama that unfolded more than 6.2 million km away from Earth back in 2007. NASA only made it public on Tuesday.

Some 400 active volcanoes are situated on Io and they produce plumes as high as 500 kilometers above Io’s surface.

The latest eruption captured by the spacecraft saw plumes over 300 kilometers in height, according to NASA’s website.

The reason for the extreme volcanic activity on Io is that it’s “locked in a perpetual tug of war between the imposing gravity of Jupiter and the smaller, consistent pulls of its neighboring moons,” NASA explains.

As a result, Io’s orbit is distorted and it stretches.

This causes friction and intense heat inside the moon, which in turn triggers eruptions across its surface.

NASA Cassini Image captures Enceladus' Plume

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Like a proud peacock displaying its tail, Enceladus shows off its beautiful plume to the Cassini spacecraft's cameras.

Enceladus (313 miles, or 504 kilometers across) is seen here illuminated by light reflected off Saturn.

This view looks toward the Saturn-facing side of Enceladus.

North on Enceladus is up and rotated 45 degrees to the right.

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Jan. 18, 2013.

The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 483,000 miles (777,000 kilometers) from Enceladus and at a Sun-Enceladus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 173 degrees. Image scale is 3 miles (5 kilometers) per pixel.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency (ISA).