Beware Io Dust: the cutest moon in the solar system

There is something in this story that endears me to Io, Jupiter’s spitting moon. I think it’s in the tagline: “Beware: Io Dust. Jupiter’s moon Io is shooting tiny volcanic bullets at passing spacecraft.”

Apparently Io’s volcanos are erupting all the time, shooting streams of dust into the solar system. These streams get picked up by Jupiter’s gravity and accelerate to around 300km/s which is pretty durn fast.

If you happen to be a spaceship passing by, you get pelted by high speed smoke.

It’s an elegant defense for our solar system’s gas giant, even if its not terribly effective.