This is beautiful.

It was Astronomy Picture of the Day on Sunday (22/5/11.) Go to the site to see it in its full glory.

It’s a composite view of Jupiter’s moon, Io, taken by the Galileo spacecraft. You can see a blue coloured volcanic plume at the top of the scene. There is another plume – known by the name Prometheus – right in the centre. It’s ring shaped and is rising directly towards the camera. The striking yellow and red patches on Io’s surface are due to the sulphur spewed out by the volcanoes. Because of that Io looks like a semi-precious stone.