Annotated Version
The New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) snapped this
photo of Jupiter's ring system on February 24, 2007, from a distance of
7.1 million kilometers (4.4 million miles).
This processed image shows a narrow ring, about 1,000 kilometers (600
miles) wide, with a fainter sheet of material inside it. The faint glow
extending in from the ring is likely caused by fine dust that diffuses in
toward Jupiter. This is the outer tip of the "halo," a cloud of dust that
extends down to Jupiter's cloud tops. The dust will glow much brighter in
pictures taken after New Horizons passes to the far side of Jupiter and
looks back at the rings, which will then be sunlit from behind.
Jupiter's ring system was discovered in 1979, when astronomers spied it in
a single image taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft. Months later, Voyager 2
carried out more extensive imaging of the system. It has since been
examined by NASA's Galileo and Cassini spacecraft, as well as by the
Hubble Space Telescope and large ground-based observatories.
