An artist's sketch showing the relative positions of Jupiter's ring material
as derived from three small ring-moons: Adrastea, Amalthea, and Thebe.
Adrastea, the smallest moon, is the best source because all its impact ejecta
escapes after impacts. As the paths of this debris are dragged inward,
a ring forms radially interior to the satellite's orbit. This band
is equatorial and vertically thin because its source satellite lies
in Jupiter's equatorial plane; however, since Amalthea and Thebe have
slightly inclined orbits, the debris that leaves them rapidly fills thin
cylindrical shells lying about the satellite orbital positions with heights
corresponding to the maximum excursions that the satellites make off
the equatorial plane. Thebe's gossamer ring is taller than Amalthea's
because Thebe's orbit is more inclined. Over longer times, the bands
associated with Amalthea and Thebe would spiral inward to produce
washer-like rings (not shown).
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the Galileo mission
for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC.
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted
on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URL
http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov/.
Background information and educational context for the images can be found at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo.
