Authors: Anderson John D., Johnson Torrence V., Schubert Gerald, Asmar Sami, Jacobson Robert A., Johnston Douglas, Lau Eunice L., Lewis George, Moore William B., Taylor Anthony, Thomas Peter C., and Weinwurm Gudrun
Year: 2005
Title: Amalthea's Density Is Less Than That of Water
Journal: Science
Volume: 308
Number: 5726
Pages: 1291-1293
Keywords: Jupiter, small, planetology
Abstract: Radio Doppler data from the Galileo spacecraft's encounter with Amalthea, one of Jupiter's small inner moons, on 5 November 2002 yield a mass of (2.08 +/- 0.15) Õ±018 kilograms. Images of Amalthea from two Voyager spacecraft in 1979 and Galileo imaging between November 1996 and June 1997 yield a volume of (2.43 +/- 0.22) Õ±06 cubic kilometers. The satellite thus has a density of 857 +/- 99 kilograms per cubic meter. We suggest that Amalthea is porous and composed of water ice, as well as rocky material, and thus formed in a cold region of the solar system, possibly not at its present location near Jupiter.
%F: AA(Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109-8099, USA.), AB(Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109-8099, USA.), AC(Department of Earth and Space Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1567, USA.; Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1567, USA.), AD(Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109-8099, USA.), AE(Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109-8099, USA.), AF(Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109-8099, USA.), AG(Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109-8099, USA.), AH(Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109-8099, USA.), AI(Department of Earth and Space Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1567, USA.), AJ(Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109-8099, USA.), AK(Center for Radio Physics and Space Research, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853-4901, USA.), AL(Institute of Geodesy and Geophysics, Vienna University of Technology, A-1040 Vienna, Austria.)
Bibliogaphic Code: 2005Sci...308.1291A
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