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The moon of Amalthea is a loose pile of icy debris that has a lower density than water. Amalthea challenges conventional theories about the formation of the moon. The small moon was captured by the Juno mission.
Amalthea in front of the Great Red Spot. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS. Image processing by Gerald Eichstädt, Voyager, News9)
New Delhi: NASA has released an image of Amalthea captured by the Juno spacecraft during the 59th close approach on March 7, 2024. The small ice moon has a radius of 84 kilometers and a shape similar to a potato. The moon lacks mass to adopt a spherical shape. Amalthea orbits Jupiter within the orbit of Io, which is the innermost large moon of the planets. Amalthea completes a little more than two orbits around Jupiter each Earth day.
Amalthea in front of the Great Red Spot. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS. Image processing by Gerald Eichstädt).
The reddest object in the Solar System
Amalthea is the reddest object in the Solar System and observations indicate that it radiates more heat than it receives from the Sun. Scientists suspect this is because Amalthea orbits within Jupiter’s powerful magnetic field, which can induce electrical currents in the core. of the moon. The tides caused by Jupiter’s immense gravity may also be heating the moon from the inside.
An illustration of Galileo in Amalthea. (Image credit: NASA/JPL/Michael Carroll).
The Galileo spacecraft in 2000 revealed some surface features, including impact craters, hills and valleys. The moon is a loosely held pile of ice and rock. Amalthea challenges conventional theories of moon formation because scientists expected moons orbiting closer to the gas giant to have a rocky rather than icy composition. Galileo’s observations indicate that Amalthea formed in a colder region of the solar system before being captured by Jupiter.
Discovery and naming
Amalthea was discovered by American astronomer Edward Emerson on September 9, 1892 using a refracting telescope at the Lick Observatory in California. French astronomer Camille Flammarion suggested the name of the moon derived from Greek mythology, in reference to the goat that suckled a baby Zeus. Amalthea was the last planetary satellite in the solar system to be discovered directly by telescopic observation.