Experts Solve Puzzle About Jupiter’s Ring

Scientists say they’ve solved a long-standing puzzle about the dust ring that encircles Jupiter: What makes its inner edge bulge?

The answer is Jupiter’s magnetic field acting on electrically charged particles of dust in the ring, says researcher Mihalyi Horanyi at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

He and Thomas Cravens of the University of Kansas in Lawrence presented a computerized analysis in the May 23 issue of the journal Nature.

Dust particles fall from the ring into Jupiter, and they are continuously replaced as interplanetary dust zipping toward Jupiter chips particles off rocks in the ring, Horanyi said. A given particle remains in the ring for only hours to days, an unusually short time for planetary ring material, Horanyi said.