Inner moons of Jupiter

The inner moons of Jupiter are four small moons that orbit close to Jupiter. These moons are closely interconnected with the rings of Jupiter and serve as both sources and sinks of the ring's material. Their semi-major axes range between 128,000 and 222,000 km.^[1]

The members of the group are (in order from closest to farthest):

Metis
Adrastea
Amalthea, the biggest, after which the group is sometimes named
Thebe

Metis and Adrastea each orbit Jupiter in less than one Jovian day (the time it takes for Jupiter to rotate once). Phobos, a moon of Mars, is the only other moon known to orbit its planet in less than the length of that planet's day.

Gallery of images

Image of Metis taken by the Galileo spacecraft
Galileo image of Adrastea
Images of Amalthea taken from the Galileo spacecraft
Image of Thebe taken by the Galileo spacecraft

Related pages

List of Jupiter's moons

References

↑ Burns, J.A.; Simonelli, D.P. & Showalter, M.R. et al. (2004), "Jupiter’s Ring-Moon System", in Bagenal, F.; Dowling, T. E.; McKinnon, W. B., Jupiter: The planet, Satellites and Magnetosphere, Cambridge University Press

[Burns2004-1] Burns, J.A.; Simonelli, D.P. & Showalter, M.R. et al. (2004), "Jupiter’s Ring-Moon System", in Bagenal, F.; Dowling, T. E.; McKinnon, W. B., Jupiter: The planet, Satellites and Magnetosphere, Cambridge University Press

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