Image Title: Development of Jupiter's Main Ring and Halo Target Name: J Rings Is a satellite of: Jupiter Mission: Galileo Spacecraft: Galileo Orbiter Instrument: Solid State Imaging Produced By: Cornell University Creation Date: 1998-09-15 Primary Data Set: Galileo EDRs Full-Res JPEG: R17_magforce1_full.jpg (178 kbytes)

Original Caption Released with Image:

An artist's sketch of the development of the main Jovian ring and halo. Particles in the main ring are believed to be impact debris coming off the small moons Adrastea and Metis. Adrastea (shown in the sketch) skims along the outer edge of the ring and Metis orbits roughly in the middle of the main ring. The orbits of the debris spiral inward due to the absorption of sunlight. At 1.7 Jupiter radii (121,400 kilometers or 75,300 miles), this debris reaches a resonance where electromagnetic forces push the particles up and down at a rate that is exactly one third their orbital rate around Jupiter. The systematic forcing at this resonance pushes the particles out of the equatorial plane, leading to the development of the vertically extended (lightbulb-shaped) halo. An even stronger resonance is located at 1.4 Jupiter radii (100,000 kilometers or 62,000 miles), where the particles are pushed upward on every second orbit. Their paths become so tilted and elongated that they hit Jupiter's atmosphere where they are lost, thereby terminating the ring halo.

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://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo.

Image Note:

Related Release

Artist's drawing by Jim Houghton.

This page is not a Planetary PhotoJournal release, but is an illustration provided by the Galileo imaging (SSI) team as further background for other releases of imaging data.

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Galileo Solid State Imaging Team Leader: Dr. Michael J. S. Belton

The SSI Education and Public Outreach webpages were originally created and managed by Matthew Fishburn and Elizabeth Alvarez with significant assistance from Kelly Bender, Ross Beyer, Detrick Branston, Stephanie Lyons, Eileen Ryan, and Nalin Samarasinha.

Last updated: September 17, 1999, by Matthew Fishburn

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