Tawhaki Patera

Tawhaki is an Ionian patera, a type of volcanic crater similar to a caldera, 49.8 kilometers (30.9 mi) wide and 550 meters (1,800 ft) deep.

[5] However, the low-resolution of the ground-based observation precludes a definitive identification of the source volcano of the eruption beyond that it was located in northwestern Media Regio on Io's leading hemisphere.

[6] The NIMS instrument did detect a thermal hotspot between one and five micrometres at Tawhaki during Galileo's 21st orbit in July 1999, a month prior to the eruption.

[5] The southern half of Tawhaki Patera was observed by Galileo at 260 meters per pixel during an encounter with Io on November 26, 1999, providing the highest resolution image of this volcano.

[8] The volcano was formally named Tawhaki Patera by the International Astronomical Union in 2000 after the Māori lightning god, Tāwhaki.

Highest resolution images of Tawhaki Patera, taken by the Galileo spacecraft. Color image on the left acquired in July 1999. The gray scale image on the right taken in November 1999.