Evolution of Io's volatile inventory

Voyager data are used to make crude estimates of the rate at which Io loses volatiles, by a variety of processes, to the surrounding magnetosphere, for the case of both the current, SO2-dominated atmosphere and hypothetical paleoatmospheres in which such other gases as N2 may have been the dominant constituent. Among the mechanisms making significant contributions to the prodigious rate at which Io is losing volatiles are: the interaction of the magnetospheric plasma with volcanic plume particles and the background atmosphere; the sputtering of ices on the surface, if the nightside atmospheric pressure is low enough; and Jeans' escape of O as a dissociation product of SO2 gas. It is also argued that in the case of paleoatmospheres only the first two alternatives would have been possible and, nevertheless, insufficient to account for N2 loss over the life of the satellite.