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Io · Fluctus · 91st largest named feature

Arinna Fluctus

Hittite sun goddess.

What Arinna Fluctus is

Arinna Fluctus is a fluctus — a flow of erupted material — on Io, 122 km across, centred at 31.6° N, 149.2° W. It is the 91st largest named feature on Io and the 13th largest of its class there.

Where the name comes from

Hittite sun goddess. The International Astronomical Union approved the name in 2000, under the theme it applies to every fluctus on Io. Of the 19 features of this class catalogued on Io, the naming categories run China (3), Japan (2), Teutonic (1), Norse (1).

Feature class
a flow of erupted material
Diameter
122 km
about the width of Yellowstone
Coordinates
31.6° N, 149.2° W
Planetocentric, on Io
Name approved
2000
By the IAU Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature
Naming category
Iraq
Asia

What it would take to settle Arinna Fluctus

Io scores 76.7 as a world. That number is the same for every square metre of it — but sunlight, water, radiation and the ground under your feet are not. This is the same question asked at 31.6° N, 149.2° W.

Settlement difficulty here
76.5/ 100
Typical for this world
Io overall
76.7
0.2 easier than the median site
Ranked
118th
of 260 named places on Io

What this spot has going for it is sunlight 85% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Io gets. What works against it is water same as everywhere else on this world.

Computed from Arinna Fluctus's catalogued latitude, longitude and feature class — 84% of the model's weight had a basis here, and 2 axes were dropped as not applicable to Io (earth link, known ground). Gravity, pressure, delta-v and distance from the Sun are the same everywhere on Io and are already counted in the world's own index, not again here.

What this cannot see: elevation. Slope, local shadowing and the polar “peaks of eternal light” — ridge tops near the poles of a barely tilted world that catch sun almost continuously while a crater floor kilometres away never does — need a terrain model this does not have. Where a real mission targets a pole, that is usually why.

What is next to it

The largest fluctus features on Io

All 19 fluctus on Io — mapped together, with the naming theme and the size distribution.