Reiden Patera is a volcanic feature on Jupiter's moon Io. It was first detected by the Galileo SSI Team during the spacecraft Galileo's first orbit around Jupiter, initially detected as a hotspot. It was once thought that the activity there had stopped or waned below the limits of the spacecraft's Solid State Imager or Near-Infrared Mapping Spectrometer.[1] However, it was noticed in 2002 that Reiden Patera has darkened considerably since the 24th orbit of Galileo. It has been spouting bright red pyroclastic deposits of its own.[2] It is located at 13°24′S 235°27′W / 13.4°S 235.45°W / -13.4; -235.45 (Reiden Patera) and is 70 kilometers in diameter. It is named after a Japanese thunder god ("Raijin" in current English nomenclature).[3] Asha Patera can be found to the east, and Kami-Nari Patera can be found to the north.[4]

Reiden Patera, in a screenshot taken in NASA World Wind. Click to enlarge.

References

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  1. ^ "Lopes-Gautier_IoVolc_Icarus99.pdf" (PDF). es.ucsc.edu. Retrieved October 18, 2007.
  2. ^ "1954.pdf" (PDF). lpi.usra.edu. Retrieved October 18, 2007.
  3. ^ "IO NOMENCLATURE". lnfm1.sai.msu.su. Retrieved October 18, 2007.
  4. ^ NASA World Wind 1.4. NASA Ames Research Center, 2007.