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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.
Index
More Links to Rings Node Facilities...
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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