The
top and bottom panels show a mosaic of images of Jupiter's rings taken by
NASA's Galileo spacecraft. Jupiter is to the right of this mosaic, and different
brightness scales accent different parts of the ring system. Jupiter's ring
system has three parts -- a flat main ring; a halo inside the main ring
shaped like a double-convex lens; and the gossamer ring outside the main
ring. In the top view, a faint mist of particles is seen above and below
the main ring. This vertically extended "halo" is unusual in planetary
rings, and is caused by electromagnetic forces pushing the smallest grains,
which carry electric charges, out of the ring plane. |
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These
images were taken through the clear filter of Galileo's onboard solid state
imaging camera system on November 9, 1996. The resolution is approximately
24 kilometers per picture element along Jupiter's rings. Because the spacecraft
was only about 0.5 degrees above the ring plane, the image is highly foreshortened
vertically. The images were obtained when Galileo was in Jupiter's shadow,
peering back toward the Sun, when the ring was approximately 2.3 million
kilometers away. |
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