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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).
Name | Value | Additional Values |
---|---|---|
Target | Jupiter | Adrastea, Jupiter Rings, Metis |
System | Jupiter | |
Target Type | Planet | Ring, Satellite |
Mission | New Horizons | |
Instrument Host | New Horizons | |
Host Type | Flyby Spacecraft | |
Instrument | Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) | |
Detector | ||
Extra Keywords | Grayscale, Movie, Visual | |
Acquisition Date | ||
Release Date | 2007-05-01 | |
Date in Caption | ||
Image Credit | NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute | |
Source | photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA09921 | |
Identifier | PIA09921 |