Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Burns, Joseph A.
• Showalter, Mark R.
• Hamilton, Douglas P.
• Nicholson, Philip D.
• de Pater, Imke
• Ockert-Bell, Maureen E.
• Thomas, Peter C.

Titel

The Formation of Jupiter's Faint Rings

Ist Teil von

• Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science), 1999-05, Vol.284 (5417), p.1146-1150

Ort / Verlag

Washington, DC: American Society for the Advancement of Science

Erscheinungsjahr

1999

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

American Association for the Advancement of Science

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Observations by the Galileo spacecraft and the Keck telescope showed that Jupiter's outermost (gossamer) ring is actually two rings circumscribed by the orbits of the small satellites Amalthea and Thebe. The gossamer rings' unique morphology-especially the rectangular end profiles at the satellite's orbit and the enhanced intensities along the top and bottom edges of the rings-can be explained by collisional ejecta lost from the inclined satellites. The ejecta evolves inward under Poynting-Robertson drag. This mechanism may also explain the origin of Jupiter's main ring and suggests that faint rings may accompany all small inner satellites of the other jovian planets.