- Original Caption Released with Image:
-
The New Horizons spacecraft took the best images of Jupiter's
charcoal-black rings as it approached and then looked back at Jupiter. The
top image was taken on approach, showing three well-defined lanes of
gravel- to boulder-sized material composing the bulk of the rings, as well
as lesser amounts of material between the rings. New Horizons snapped the
lower image after it had passed Jupiter on February 28, 2007, and looked
back in a direction toward the sun. The image is sharply focused, though
it appears fuzzy due to the cloud of dust-sized particles enveloping the
rings. The dust is brightly illuminated in the same way the dust on a
dirty windshield lights up when you drive toward a "low" sun. The narrow
rings are confined in their orbits by small "shepherding" moons.
- Image Credit:
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NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest
Research Institute
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