Starship Asterisk*

The 1/9/05 APOD made me think of a question that probably many people could benefit from. What magnification in a telescope do you need to see Jupiter's rings?

I think you could never see the rings from earth. I suppose that they are way too thin (in thickness, and change of radius)

plus I also think that Jupiter never points towards us in a way to permit us viewing his rings.

If they weren't seen until Mohammed went to the Mountain (so to speak) in '79, I'd guess that they're going to be pretty tough to see with earth-bound technology for quite a few more years into the future...

~Neal

I have heared about some "condensation" theory of planet formation, according to that there should be rings around every planet (probably, same math, except that ring material is not made by crater-to-satellite impacts, but is simply the rest of the material satellits and planets were made of). I have also heared that there were dust density measurements around the Earth (back in 80s or before), by russian satellites, that suggest very thin invisible dust rings existance, and that is sort of prove of the theory, in a part that rings are attribute of every planet, but their density (and so visibility) may vary. Unfortunately, I have no any references at hand, but, I'm sure professional astronomer should be able to find ones.

Brendan Rose wrote:mmmm-I don't know what it is, but finding rings on jupiter may mean earth may have a thin layer for a ring. The moon has the crater impacts and some of the debris may be what makes are ring.

-just a thought-

post found here:
http://asterisk.apod.com/vie ... =3721#3721

I've been trying to understand the photo and I have a problem with it: why is the ring on the left side discontinuous with the planet? If the planet is blocking sunlight and the rings are black (in shadow), why are both the front and back part black? On the right side, only the part nearer to the camera is black.

I can try to answer your question. the light in a circle around the planet is actually refracted through the atmosphere of Jupiter. So we are not looking at the edge of the planet but rather a few degrees inward.

On the right side, only the part nearer to the camera is black.

that may be just an illusion, it could be the farther part. I'm not sure on that though.

'Fraid not. That would be a heck of a deep refraction, and it took a while but I got a circular object to just cover the lit part of Jupiter on my screen, and that's the whole circle. It can't go further to the left if the lit-up right side really is the right side of Jupiter.
Also, we know the nearer side of the ring on the right is the part that's shadowed, because the picture was taken from the shadowed side of the planet. I.e., the Sun is on the other side of the planet from the camera.
Help! More help! There's got to be an explanation, but all I can guess right now is that the left side of the ring was added in afterward and didn't show up in the original photo.