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Jupiter's Ring System

Jupiter's ring was discovered by Voyager 1 in a single image that was targeted specifically to search for a faint ring system. Subsequently, Voyager 2 was reprogrammed to take a more complete set of images. The ring is now known to be composed of three major components. The main ring is about 7000 km wide and has an abrupt outer boundary 128,940 km from the center of the planet. The main ring encompasses the orbits of two small moons, Adrastea and Metis, which may act as the source for the dust that makes up most of the ring. At its inner edge the main ring merges gradually into the halo. The halo is a broad, faint torus of material about 10,000 km thick and extending halfway from the main ring down to the planet's cloudtops. Just outside the main ring is a pair of broad and exceedingly faint gossamer rings, one bounded by the orbit of the moon Amalthea and the other by the orbit of Thebe.

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Animations

  • A Jupiter "Day" (QuickTime (MOV) format, 2.6 Mbytes)
      Jupiter and its ring system as seen from the surface of the moon Io. The ring grows in brightness as Io goes around to the dark side of Jupiter because the ring's dust scatters light very efficiently at high phase angles. The tiny moons Adrastea and Metis, which are embedded within the rings, can also be seen. This was a full motion NASA video converted to QuickTime format.

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    Images

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    Related Web Sites

    These sites contain more information about Jupiter and its ring system.

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