Jupiter V
Amalthea [am-al-THEE-uh] is one of Jupiter's smaller moons. It was named after the nymph who nursed the infant Jupiter with goats milk. It is extremely irregular, having dimensions of about 270x165x150 km in diameter. It is heavily scarred by craters some being extremely large relative to the size of the moon. One such crater (Pan) measures 100 km across and another (Gaea) 80 km across. The surface has a reddish color apparently due to a dusting of sulphur originating from Io. Amalthea rotates synchronously with its long axis pointed towards Jupiter
Discovered by ........................ Edward Emerson Barnard Date of discovery ...................................... 1892 Mass (kg) .......................................... 7.17e+18 Mass (Earth = 1) ................................. 1.1998e-06 Radius (km) ....................................... 135x84x75 Radius (Earth = 1) ............................... 2.1167e-02 Mean density (gm/cm^3) .................................. 1.8 Mean distance from Jupiter (km) ..................... 181,300 Rotational period (days) ........................... 0.498179 Orbital period (days) .............................. 0.498179 Mean orbital velocity (km/sec) ........................ 26.47 Orbital eccentricity .................................. 0.003 Orbital inclination .................................... 0.40° Escape Velocity (km/sec) ............................. 0.0842 Visual geometric albedo ................................ 0.05 Magnitude (Vo) ......................................... 14.1
Amalthea
(GIF, 13K)
This image of Amalthea was acquired by the Voyager 1 spacecraft on
March 5, 1979.
(Credit: Calvin J. Hamilton, Los Alamos National Laboratory)
Shaded Relief Map of Amalthea
(GIF,
caption)
This is a shaded relief map of Amalthea, a small satellite
of Jupiter. As with all maps, it is the cartographer's interpretation
and not all features are necessarily certain given the limited data
available - this interpretation stretches the data as far as is feasible.
(Courtesy Phil Stooke).
