Danube Planum is a rifted

Rift

In geology, a rift or chasm is a place where the Earth's crust and lithosphere are being pulled apart and is an example of extensional tectonics....

 mesa

Mesa

A mesa or table mountain is an elevated area of land with a flat top and sides that are usually steep cliffs. It takes its name from its characteristic table-top shape....

 on the surface of Jupiter

Jupiter

Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within the Solar System. It is a gas giant with mass one-thousandth that of the Sun but is two and a half times the mass of all the other planets in our Solar System combined. Jupiter is classified as a gas giant along with Saturn,...

's moon Io

Io (moon)

Io ) is the innermost of the four Galilean moons of the planet Jupiter and, with a diameter of , the fourth-largest moon in the Solar System. It was named after the mythological character of Io, a priestess of Hera who became one of the lovers of Zeus....

. It is located on Io's trailing hemisphere at 22.73°S 257.44°W. Danube Planum is 244.22 kilometers across and 5.5 km tall. The mountain is bisected by a 15-to-25-kilometer-wide, northeast-southwest-trending canyon, splitting the mountain into two main east and west mountains, with several additional blocks at the southern end of the fracture. The outer margin of the plateau is marked by 2.6-to-3.4-km-tall scarp

Escarpment

An escarpment is a steep slope or long cliff that occurs from erosion or faulting and separates two relatively level areas of differing elevations.-Description and variants:...

s. Mass wasting in the form of landslide deposits are visible along the base of the western half of Danube Planum. Two volcanic depressions, known as paterae, lie at northern and southern ends of mountain. The volcano at the northern end, Pele

Pele (volcano)

Pele is an active volcano on the surface of Jupiter's moon Io. It is located on Io's trailing hemisphere at A large, tall volcanic plume has been observed at Pele by various spacecraft starting with Voyager 1 in 1979, though it has not been persistent. The discovery of the Pele plume on March...

, is one of the most active volcanoes on Io. One of the faults that helped form Danube Planum may also act as a conduit for magma to rise to the surface at Pele.

In 1985, the International Astronomical Union

International Astronomical Union

The International Astronomical Union IAU is a collection of professional astronomers, at the Ph.D. level and beyond, active in professional research and education in astronomy...

 officially named

Planetary nomenclature

Planetary nomenclature, like terrestrial nomenclature, is a system of uniquely identifying features on the surface of a planet or natural satellite so that the features can be easily located, described, and discussed. The task of assigning official names to features is taken up by the International...

 the mountain after the Danube River

Danube

The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....

, one of a number of places the mythological Io

Io (mythology)

Io was, in Greek mythology, a priestess of Hera in Argos, a nymph who was seduced by Zeus, who changed her into a heifer to escape detection. His wife Hera set ever-watchful Argus Panoptes to guard her, but Hermes was sent to distract the guardian and slay him...

passed during her wanderings.