During the Voyager 1 flyby, temperature scans of the surface of Io were made with the infrared interferometer spectrometer (IRIS). A number of localized warm regions were found, the most dramatic being just south of the volcano Loki. Here the images showed a strange, U-shaped black feature about 200 kilometers across. The IRIS team interpreted its data to indicate a temperature for the black feature of 17° C (or room temperature), in contrast to the surrounding surface at -146° C. Perhaps the dark feature was some sort of lava lake, either of molten rock or molten sulfur. The melting point of sulfur is 112° C. If there were a scum of solidifying sulfur on top of the “lake,” this interpretation might well be the correct one. The brilliant reds and yellows of the surface of Io immediately suggest the presence of sulfur. When heated to different temperatures and suddenly cooled, sulfur can assume many colors, ranging from black through various shades of red to its normal light-yellow appearance. Even before Voyager, laboratory studies had shown that sulfur matches the overall properties of the spectrum of Io, including the low albedo in the ultraviolet and the high reflectivity throughout the infrared. Contemporary with the Voyager flybys, additional telescopic observations and laboratory studies by Fraser Fanale at JPL and Dale Cruikshank at the University of Hawaii identified another component on Io, sulfur dioxide. Sulfur dioxide is an acrid gas released from terrestrial volcanoes, where it combines with water in the Earth’s atmosphere to produce sulfuric acid. At the temperature of the surface of Io, sulfur dioxide is a white solid. Researchers guessed that the extensive bright white areas in the Voyager pictures of Io might be covered with sulfur dioxide frost or snow. The presence of this material on Io was confirmed when the infrared IRIS instrument obtained a spectrum of sulfur dioxide gas over the erupting volcano Loki during the Voyager 1 encounter. [Illustration: Close-ups of Io reveal a wide variety of volcanic phenomena. This Voyager 1 view of an equatorial region near longitude 300° shows several large surface flows that originate in volcanic craters or calderas. At the right edge is a light flow about 250 kilometers long. Another dark, lobate flow with bright edges is just left of center, with an exceedingly dark caldera to its left. [260-468A]] The discovery of the ongoing eruptions on Io, made shortly after the Voyager 1 flyby, did much to clarify the confused evidence pouring in concerning the apparent youth of Io’s surface. Here, under the very eyes of Voyager, eruptions were taking place on a scale that dwarfed anything ever seen before. The discovery picture alone, taken from a distance of 4 million kilometers, showed two eruptions (Pele and Loki), each of which was much larger than the most violent volcanic eruption ever recorded on Earth.