Amalthea


Natural satellite of Jupiter

Discovered by Barnard in 1892 Amalthea is also designated Jupiter V Amalthea

These two images show the moon Amalthea; they were taken by the Galileo probe with the Sun directly behind the spacecraft, an alignment that emphasizes patterns of intrinsically bright or dark surface material. The top image is a view of Amalthea's leading side, the side of the moon that 'leads' as Amalthea moves in its orbit around Jupiter. This image looks 'noisy' because it was obtained serendipitously during an observation of the Jovian satellite Io (Amalthea and Io shared the same camera frame but the image was exposed for bright Io rather than for the much darker Amalthea). The bottom image emphasizes prominent 'spots' of relatively bright material that are located near the point on Amalthea that faces permanently away from Jupiter.

In both images, north is approximately up, The images are, from top to bottom: ; Amalthea on November 6, 1997 at a range of about 650,000 kilometers (about 404,000 miles); Amalthea on November 7, 1997 at a range of 475,000 kilometers (about 295,000 miles.

Images courtesy of NASA / Cornell University

Physical Parameters

Equatorial Diameter 270 kilometres
Polar Diameter 170 kilometres
Third Diameter 150 kilometres (Amalthea is not spherical)

Orbital Parameters

Mean Distance from Jupiter 181,300,000 kilometres
Mean Sidereal Period 0.498 earthdays
Eccentricity 0.003
Inclination 0.45
Opposition Magnitude (Average) 14.1

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