... What on Io was that?

Every Dwarfer worth their chilli salt knows that dusty old 6x4 print Lister shows to the Cat on the sleeping quarters' vid-screen whilst packing for his second three-million-year jag in stasis. It depicts a faded, slightly wibbly-wobbly photo of Jupiter looming like a pissed-off beach ball over a scorched, crunchy plain.

The remarkably unremarkable image looks like it was taken on a fifth-hand iPhone by the bored Third Tech during shore leave, while their bunkmate was either currently visiting the family dog, or arguing with the dispensing machine over a jammed pickled onion Space Raider. You can almost hear the wheeze of their PD suit mic and smell the irradiated chicken balti ration pack steaming in their lap.

But here's the kicker... despite its blandness, starkness, and the faint whiff of accidental lens fogging due to sulphur vapour (or, perhaps worse), this photo is potentially, scientifically bang on - on the basis it was taken whilst Lister was busy taking small steps on the inhospitable terrain of Rimmer's old stomping ground, Io.

First off, let's talk angular diameter. From Earth, Jupiter is about 50 arcseconds wide in the night sky, which is roughly the size of a 10p coin held at arm's length - using a telescope. From Io? This dude stretches an obscene 18.8 degrees across the sky. That's half the size of an iPad screen if held up at arm's length - without a telescope. No wonder Lister claims it's the planetary equivalent of Big Ben in transtellar tourist selfies ("everyone takes that shot...").

In other words, as I understand it (and considering I can barely use a kaleidoscope, please don't take the following as gospel), astronomers measure how big things appear in our sky using angular size. One degree = 60 arcminutes, one arcminute = 60 arcseconds, and one degree = 3600 arcseconds. Jupiter at 50 arcseconds appears to us like a tiny dot, just over 1/30th the diameter of our full Moon. So, if using the naked eye, instead of a 10p coin, imagine a full stop printed on a page, held at arm’s length - that is closer to Jupiter's apparent size. To us back home on Earth, Jupiter looks like a very bright star. Through a small telescope, you can see it as a disk, and even its moons as tiny dots nearby. Second only to the sun in terms of bloody great big bigness, at 50 arcseconds, it is large enough to resolve detail with even amateur telescopes - including the iconic cloud bands and Great Red Spot.

The moon Io's proximity - just 421,700 km from Jupiter's centre - makes it one of the few major bodies close enough to let the planet dominate the sky. Any further out and Jupiter starts to look like just another glowing bauble. According to NASA, the surface of Europa would also make for a similar shot, but its composition is said to be icy or glassy and doesn't quite match the more arid terrain as depicted during, Future Echoes.

And then there's the Red Spot - famously flipped to the left in this print. That tells us we're not seeing it from the usual Earth-fanboy angle. No, this is a proper behind-the-scenes moment - Io giving us a rare perspective from the opposite hemisphere, the way only a moon on the inside track could. The moon is also tidally-locked to the planet so always 'sees' the same angle - which sort-of belies Lister's other claim that his photo depicts "the Jupiter rise" which I do not believe could occur from this spot, at least.

Furthermore, the landscape, as presented, is rocky and uneven, but not dominated by volcanic spectacles or lava - as is thought to be. However, the image does show dryness and dust, jagged, cracked terrain, and low ambient haze, which could suggest "sulphur dioxide frost sublimation or residual volcanic out-gassing, but not full eruption." This fits with areas in Io’s equatorial plains, where there are older lava flows and pyroclastic deposits, but not active volcanic activity.

So... best guess, Lister took this photo somewhere near the Amirani Flow field or the Shamshu-Prometheus region - active, but clearly not erupting at that moment.

And yes - this Re-Mastered version was lovingly re-imagined (okay, fabricated) by ChatGPT, which, as it turns out, is surprisingly good at amateur space tourism photography if you bribe it with enough silicon hymn sheets. With your humble blogger admittedly something of an (albeit acne-free) thickie, much of the scientific acumen was also gleaned from its dutiful data-banks, including such technotronic specifics as:

    •    Western edge of the sub-Jovian hemisphere, possibly ~30° west longitude, ~10° south latitude
    •    Elevated ridge or lava plateau, looking slightly 'up' toward Jupiter as it hangs low in the sky
    •    Early morning or late afternoon, judging by shadow angles
    •    Taken during a rare moment of calm - no volcanic eruptions

For the contemporary version above, I requested a low-gravity dust plume be kicked-up during the exposure, or the photo emulsion partially fogged by Jupiter's monstrous radiation belts. Considering Io orbits inside them, unless it was specially shielded, Lister taking his camera out for a sentimental snapshot is basically the same as giving it a gentle microwave. Without adequate protection, he himself would have returned on-board sporting a 'healthy'-looking gamma suntan, too.

For some reason, I have long considered in the future that Red Dwarf inhabits that medical advances essentially cured most debilitating diseases - hence characters smoking like chimneys in earlier series. In reality, this is chiefly down to certain members of the cast being of the chain-smoker variety at the time of production, and absolutely before the United Kingdom's smoking ban came into effect in 2007. Either that, or being in 'international waters' does the ship not necessarily need to abide by Terran stipulations and regulations? Perhaps that's why we see VHS cassettes and CRT monitors - not necessary from a position of function, but rather tax exemption.

I could just imagine some accountant at the JMC going over their annual books and saying, "You know, if we switch from Blu-ray to VHS, we could save another $£47.72 in material losses..."

I hope that someone installed a charging point nearby, as to keep Lister, well, not-dead during this nice relaxing stroll on Io (which has no atmosphere, 1/6 gravity, and where temperature ranges anywhere between -163-1200°C), he would require somewhere in the region of 1 kWh per hour to sustain sufficient thermal regulation, heating, life support, CO2 scrubbing, humidity, pressure, heavy passive radiation shielding, comms, HUD, and suit systems. Such is the extreme nature of this world that his boots could either melt or freeze on a virtually step-by-step basis. But that probably wouldn't make for a very funny telly programme.

There's something charming and evocative about a lonely, underpaid Space Corps. technician stopping to quickly preserve a stunning stellar vista like this. These days, it might be of the panoramic variety, or even a selfie. Maybe Dave was tired. Maybe he was in love. Or getting over being dumped. Maybe his boot was full of regolith, and he remembered the only way to gain access to his foil-lined curry was to directly connect his suit's food line to the bio-feedback catheter. But even so, he took the time to think... "Wow. What a brutal view."

And now his photo lives on. In the long-abandoned bunk-room. Under the scanner table. And here.

Speaking of which, slim pickings this year, but I have identified another jacket patch - just haven't been able to track down an example as yet. I hear the closest one is over 50 arcseconds away, so, at present, to the naked eye, it looks like a well-earned pea covered in sock dandruff orbiting Felicity Kendall's celestial posterior.

 

RIP Mike Agnew & Charles Augins - thanks for the memories.