The Story of Jupiter's Rings

The Story

of Jupiter's Rings

Click here for related information: Press releases, fact sheet, web streaming of the Sept. 15th press briefing, Sept. 16th webchat, etc..

Images and Illustrations

Click on icons for full resolution images and captions.

Jupiter's Main Ring and Inner Satellites are shown from a side and an overhead perspective. Jupiter's four innermost moons supply material for the rings.

Jupiter's Ring System Peering back at Jupiter, while the Sun was hidden behind the planet, the Galileo camera obtained a sequence of images of Jupiter's faint, tenuous rings.

Jupiter's Main Ring and Halo. The same mosaic is shown with two brightness scales, one to accent the halo (top) and one to accent the main ring (bottom).

Jupiter's Gossamer Ring is the diffuse band which starts exterior to the main ring and continues beyond the left edge of this mosaic. The gossamer rings are much fainter than the main ring and halo (brighter part on right).

Gossamer Ring Structure. New Galileo images, taken at increasing sensitivities, show structure in the gossamer rings. The graphics (bottom of left frame) show the correspondence between the rings and the orbits of the inner satellites. The right frame, a subset of the data in the left frame, focusses on the inner gossamer ring and the moon Amalthea.

Jupiter's Inner Satellites and the Formation of the Rings. Fine dust is kicked up as micrometeroids strike the inner satellites. As the dust particles absorb sunlight, they spiral in towards Jupiter and form an equatorial planetary ring.

The Heights of Jupiter's Main and Gossamer Rings correspond to the maximum inclination of the related satellite's orbit from Jupiter's equatorial plane. Thebe's orbit is more inclined than Amalthea's orbit so the outer gossamer ring extends vertically further than the inner gossamer ring. Since both the satellites and the dust particles from them pause at the tops and bottoms of their paths before they come back down, the rings are denser at their top and bottom edges.

Jupiter's Ring Halo forms as particles which spiral in toward Jupiter are pushed up and down by electromagnetic forces. At certain distances from Jupiter, the vertically oscillating forces and particles' orbital periods become synchronous and the pushing effects are enhanced. These resonances mark the halo's beginning and end.

Scale Comparison Shapes Models Amalthea compared to Io

Jupiter's Small Inner Satellites are irregular in shape due to a history of high velocity, highly energetic impacts from meteoroids, fragments of asteroids and comets. Since these moons are so small, their surface gravities are very low, and the particles kicked up by the impacts easily escape into orbit.

Galileo Solid State Imaging Team Leader: Dr. Michael J. S. Belton

The SSI Education and Public Outreach webpages were originally created and managed by Matthew Fishburn and Elizabeth Alvarez with significant assistance from Kelly Bender, Ross Beyer, Detrick Branston, Stephanie Lyons, Eileen Ryan, and Nalin Samarasinha.

Last updated: September 17, 1999, by Matthew Fishburn

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The Story

of Jupiter's Rings

Images and Illustrations

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The Story		of Jupiter's Rings
Click here for related information: Press releases, fact sheet, web streaming of the Sept. 15th press briefing, Sept. 16th webchat, etc..

Images and Illustrations
Click on icons for full resolution images and captions.

Jupiter's Main Ring and Inner Satellites are shown from a side and an overhead perspective. Jupiter's four innermost moons supply material for the rings.


Jupiter's Ring System	Peering back at Jupiter, while the Sun was hidden behind the planet, the Galileo camera obtained a sequence of images of Jupiter's faint, tenuous rings.

	Jupiter's Main Ring and Halo. The same mosaic is shown with two brightness scales, one to accent the halo (top) and one to accent the main ring (bottom).

	Jupiter's Gossamer Ring is the diffuse band which starts exterior to the main ring and continues beyond the left edge of this mosaic. The gossamer rings are much fainter than the main ring and halo (brighter part on right).


Gossamer Ring Structure. New Galileo images, taken at increasing sensitivities, show structure in the gossamer rings. The graphics (bottom of left frame) show the correspondence between the rings and the orbits of the inner satellites. The right frame, a subset of the data in the left frame, focusses on the inner gossamer ring and the moon Amalthea.


Jupiter's Inner Satellites and the Formation of the Rings. Fine dust is kicked up as micrometeroids strike the inner satellites. As the dust particles absorb sunlight, they spiral in towards Jupiter and form an equatorial planetary ring.


The Heights of Jupiter's Main and Gossamer Rings correspond to the maximum inclination of the related satellite's orbit from Jupiter's equatorial plane. Thebe's orbit is more inclined than Amalthea's orbit so the outer gossamer ring extends vertically further than the inner gossamer ring. Since both the satellites and the dust particles from them pause at the tops and bottoms of their paths before they come back down, the rings are denser at their top and bottom edges.


Jupiter's Ring Halo forms as particles which spiral in toward Jupiter are pushed up and down by electromagnetic forces. At certain distances from Jupiter, the vertically oscillating forces and particles' orbital periods become synchronous and the pushing effects are enhanced. These resonances mark the halo's beginning and end.


Scale Comparison	Shapes Models	Amalthea compared to Io
Jupiter's Small Inner Satellites are irregular in shape due to a history of high velocity, highly energetic impacts from meteoroids, fragments of asteroids and comets. Since these moons are so small, their surface gravities are very low, and the particles kicked up by the impacts easily escape into orbit.