PIA09921: Shepherd Moons

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Target Name: Jupiter
Is a satellite of: Sol (our sun)
Mission: New Horizons
Spacecraft: New Horizons
Instrument: LORRI
Product Size: 494 samples x 366 lines
Produced By: Johns Hopkins University/APL
Full-Res TIFF: PIA09921.tif (181.2 kB)
Full-Res JPEG: PIA09921.jpg (44.59 kB)

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Shepherd Moons

The New Horizons spacecraft took the best images of Jupiter's charcoal-black rings as it approached and then looked back at Jupiter in February 2007. This sequence of pictures from the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) shows the well-defined lanes of gravel- to boulder-sized material composing the bulk of the rings; labels point out how these narrow rings are confined in their orbits by small "shepherding" moons (Metis and Adrastea).

Image Credit:
NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

Image Addition Date:
2007-05-01