9 Strangest Things Floating Around In Our Solar System

3. Io The Space Egg

Io, one of the inner moons of Jupiter, is the most volcanically active place in the solar system. It churns out 100 times more lava than the Earth from over 400 active volcanoes, despite being a teeny 1/12th of the size. Io's violent nature is caused by the effects of the other Jovian moons, Europa and Ganymede. As the orbits of these three moons interact, they exert tidal forces on Io, essentially squashing and stretching it, causing a large amount of its mantle to melt and fire through the surface as lava. The heat produced by this activity is so intense that is was picked up by the New Horizons probe as it passed by in 2007. The probe snapped the above image, showing a volcanic eruption, spewing matter far above the moon's surface. You wouldn't want to stand on the surface, and not just because of the volcanoes. The high levels of hydrogen sulfide on the moon will mean that it gives of a powerful odour of rotten eggs. This combined with its pockmarked surface and sickly yellow colour definitely makes it the ugly duckling of the solar system.