Jupiter's Main Ring and Inner Satellites
Jupiter's main ring and inner satellites are drawn from a vantage point above Jupiter's north pole. Jupiter's four innermost moons supply material for the rings.
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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Images: Jupiter's Ring System.
Jupiter's Ring System
Peering back at Jupiter, while the Sun was hidden behind the planet, the
Galileo camera obtained a sequence of images of Jupiter's faint, tenuous rings.
Images: Jupiter's Main Ring and Halo.
Jupiter's Main Ring and Halo
The same mosaic is shown with two brightness scales,
one to accent the halo (top) and one to accent the main ring (bottom).
Images: Jupiter's Gossamer Ring.
Jupiter's Gossamer Ring
Jupiter's gossamer ring is the diffuse band which starts exterior
to the main ring and continues beyond the left edge of this mosaic.
The gossamer rings are much fainter than the main ring and halo
(brighter part on right).
Images: Scale Comparison of the Inner Small Satellites of Jupiter,
Jupiter's Inner Satellites and Ring Components.
Formation of the Jovian Ring System
Jupiter's small inner satellites are irregular in shape due to a history of high velocity, highly energetic impacts from meteoroids, fragments of asteroids and comets. Since these moons are so small, their surface gravities are very low, and the particles kicked up by the micrometeroid impacts easily escape into orbit. As the particles absorb sunlight, they spiral in towards Jupiter and form an equatorial planetary ring.
Images: Jupiter's Gossamer Ring Structure.
Jupiter's Gossamer Ring Structure
New Galileo images taken in increased sensitivities, show structure in the gossamer rings. The graphics (bottom image) show the correspondence between the rings and the orbits of the inner satellites.
Images: Jupiter's Main and Gossamer Ring Structures, Satellite Interactions with Jupiter's Ring System, Satellite Inclination in Jupiter's Ring System.
The Heights of Jupiter's Main and Gossamer Rings
The heights of Jupiter's main and gossamer rings correspond to the maximum inclination of the related satellite's orbit to Jupiter's equatorial plane. Thebe's orbit is more inclined than Amalthea's so the outer gossamer rings extends vertically further than the inner gossamer ring. Since both the satellites and the dust particles pause at the tops and bottoms of their paths before they come come back down and go up, respectively, the rings are denser at their top and bottom edges.
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