NASA’s Juno spacecraft spies a tiny inner moon of Jupiter, Amalthea.
Amalthea transits Jupiter. Credit:
/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS. Image processing by Gerald Eichstädt.The elusive moon was discovered by prolific astronomer and observer E.E. Barnard on the night of September 9, 1892. Barnard used the 91-centimeter diameter refractor telescope at the Lick observatory to spot the +14magnitude moon, which never strays more than 30” from Jupiter on its 12 hour orbit.
’s only other Jupiter orbiter Galileo has provided us with the best images of Amalthea to date, with a flyby 374,000 kilometers distant on November 26, 1999. Those images reveal a misshapen world, not unlike Mars’ moon Deimos. From the surface of Amalthea, Jupiter would provide an amazing sight, spanning nearly half the sky at 42 degrees across.Juno and the Present Status of the Mission, 2016. The mission probes the interior of Jupiter and its magnetic and radiation environment.
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