Thebe is a little, irregularly shaped moon, with measurements of approximately 116 x 98 x 84 km and a mean radius of about 49 km.

It’s the second-largest of Jupiter’s inner moons and the seventh-largest moon in general in the Jovian system.

Thebe was found in 1979 by astronomer Stephen Synnott utilizing images from NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft.

It orbits Jupiter at a typical range of about 221,900 km– well inside the orbit of Io, Jupiter’s inner Galilean moon. One orbit takes approximately 16.1 hours.

Like numerous inner moons, it is tidally locked, indicating the very same face constantly points towards Jupiter.

Thebe has actually a greatly cratered, dark reddish surface area. Its most popular function is the big effect crater Zethus, called after Thebe’s mythological twin sibling.

Among Thebe’s many noteworthy contributions is that the moon is the main source of product for Jupiter’s gossamer ring, among the faint external rings in Jupiter’s ring system. Micrometeorite effects kick dust off the moon’s surface area, which then spreads out into a scattered ring along Thebe’s orbital course.

“Thebe lives at the external edge of Jupiter’s faint ring system and is thought to contribute in the development of the world’s ‘gossamer’ ring through the shedding of dust,” NASA researchers stated in a declaration.

The brand-new picture of Thebe was recorded with the Stellar Reference Unit (SRU) onboatd the Juno spacecraft from a range of roughly 5,000 km.

“While the SRU’s main function is to image star fields for navigation, its high level of sensitivity in low-light conditions makes it an effective secondary science instrument,” the scientists stated.

“The SRU has actually formerly been utilized to find ‘shallow lightning’ in Jupiter’s environment and to image the world’s ring system.”