If you like it hot then it doesn't get hotter than the surface of Jupiter's moon Io, particularly its volcanoes, which deliver the highest surface temperatures of any planetary body in the solar system. "The very hot lavas erupting on Io are hotter than anything that has erupted on Earth for billions of years," according to Dr Alfred McEwen of the University of Arizona who, with colleagues at Brown University, Rhode Island, and five other institutions, publish their findings in the current issue of Science.
They have found 12 lava vents hotter than 2,200 Fahrenheit and one vent may reach 3,100 degrees - three times hotter than the sunny side of the closest planet to the Sun, Mercury. The researchers believe the high temperatures come from the gravitational "kneading" of Io by Jupiter and its other moon - a force powerful enough to change Io's shape.