You can see them in Jupiter's moon Io. You can find some on Neptune's icy moon Triton. Volcanoes erupting so explosively that they reach out into space. Imagine if our own moon could pull that off. Or even worse. What if a giant volcano on Earth could spew out lava that high? If so, how will it affect Earth?
One thing is for sure - if a volcano with enough power to shoot debris from the Earth's surface into space, we will all be.....extinguished (Most likely). Earth is the least volcanic planet compared to other planets in the Solar system. Mars was not always as cold as we see today. It used to have water and an Earth-like atmosphere. It could have even hosted some simple life-forms. It also had the largest active volcano in the Solar system, Olympus Mons. It hasn't been active for millions of years, but when it was it could have shot lava beyond the Martian atmosphere.
Shooting lava into space is more of a trait, not every planet can do it. But deep in our Solar system sits the planet, Neptune. Its moon not only spews out lava but also nitrogen ice. This was discovered by Voyager-2- a space probe. The next is Io, Jupiter's moon. It is covered with active volcanoes. Io erupts plumes of sulfur, unlike Earth. One of its volcanoes sends such powerful eruptions that we can detect its infrared light from them from Earth using telescopes. Pretty cool huh?
There are 2 things that affect how volcanoes erupt. The first is gravity. On Mars, the gravity is lower than it is on Earth. That's why it would take longer for magma on the red planet to rise to the surface. Sometimes gravity is responsible for the eruptions of volcanoes. A good example would be Io. Jupiter's enormous gravitation pull constantly deforms Io. And that, in turn, is heating the moon from the inside. This is called tidal heating. The second factor is the atmosphere. It affects how high volcanoes can eject their plumes. Earth has a thick, turbulent atmosphere. And that is why it can only spew volcanic debris up to 60 km high, at least not enough to reach outer space, which needs to be 100 km above Earth's surface. For Earth to produce an eruption that would spread into space, it would need to be one huge volcano.
Somewhere around 18 to 40 million years ago one such volcano did erupt to such an extent where all its surrounding habitat of almost 160 km got destroyed. This volcano is now in present-day Colorado, USA. Volcanic particles can, theoretically, reach space. They just have to move fast enough, developing the minimum speed of 11.2 km/s. They also have to tackle Earth's atmosphere resistance. Lastly, the particles should have to be big so that they don't evaporate. Since the eruption would be big, almost all life within the radius would die instantly. They would either be hit by the large chunks of rock or suffocated by the massive gas clouds. Even if you survive that, your days would be numbered because all the energy from such an event would result in global climate change and could end up causing mass extinction. Our planet could erase humanity from its surface forever, just like it erased dinosaurs some 66 million years ago.
But fortunately, this phenomenon would not happen. I hope you now have an insight into how volcanoes can shape a planet's survival and what happens if a volcano erupts in space.
Thank you for taking the time to read!
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Written by: Sowmiya Narayanan
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Reference:
“What If a Volcano Erupted into Space?” YouTube, YouTube, 1 Apr. 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGTUoM95tJw.
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