THE STRUCTURE OF JUPITER'S GOSSAMER RING
Jupiter's rings are seen in a mosaic of five images taken by the Solid State Imaging camera aboard NASA's Galileo spacecraft on October 5, 1996The spacecraft was located only about 0.15 degrees above the ring plane, making the images highly foreshortened. The appearance and geometry of these rings is intimately connected with the size, orbital position, and orbital inclinations of the four small inner satellites Metis, Adrastea, Amalthea and Thebe. Based on the information in these images the rings are a short lived dynamic phenomena that is the result of small dust particles being ejected from the moons as a result of impacts due to energetic particles in the magnetosphere.
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Supers - Video courtesy of NASA
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