Jupiter’s Rings Are ‘Made in the Shade’

Fraser · #1 (**permalink**) 01-May-2008, 01:40 PM

Robotic spacecraft can gather a lot of data, and sometimes it takes years to sort through all the information acquired. Case in point: The Galileo spacecraft orbited Jupiter from 1995-2003. One discovery made by this mission was an anomaly in Jupiter’s rings. For the most part, the rings fall into the [...]

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hhEb09'1 · #2 (**permalink**) 01-May-2008, 02:16 PM

Quote:

"As they orbit about the planet, dust grains in the rings alternately discharge and charge when they pass through the planet's shadow. These systematic variations in dust particle electric charges interact with the planet's powerful magnetic field. As a result small dust particles are pushed beyond the expected ring outer boundary, and very small grains even change their inclination, or orbital orientation, to the planet."

Quote:

"Our findings on the effects of shadow may also shed some light on aspects of planetary formation because electrically charged dust particles must somehow combine into larger bodies from which planets and moons are ultimately formed."

Just saying

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