The study will complement the upcoming flybys of Io by Nasa’s Juno spacecraft and will provide insights into its contributions to the plasma environment around Jupiter. Juno made its closest flyby of Io in July, when it came within 22,000 km of it.

“The timing of this project is critical. Over the next year, Juno will buzz past Io several times, offering rare opportunities to combine in situ and remote observations of this complex system,” said Dr Kurt Retherford, from Southwest Research Institute (SWRI), which is helping fund the project. The team will use around 4.7 per cent of available time for Hubble observations this cycle, which will be supplemented with 4.8 hours of Webb observing time.

While both are designed to study the cosmos, Webb and Hubble do not have identical capabilities and can therefore be used to complement each other in scientific studies. Webb primarily looks at the universe in the infrared, while Hubble studies it primarily at...