AMALTHEA

Four images of Amalthea, an inner satellite of Jupiter, taken by the Galileo spacecraft small, inner satellite of Jupiter discovered in 1892 by the American astronomer E.E. Barnard. It circles Jupiter once every 11 h 57 min at a distance of 181,000 km (112,220 miles) in a nearly circular, uninclined orbit. Photographs transmitted by the U.S. probes Voyagers 1 and 2 in 1979 show that Amalthea is an irregular body measuring 270 166 150 km (167 103 93 miles); the long axis always points toward Jupiter. Amalthea has a very red and very dark surface. The red colour might be the result of contamination by sulfur from the nearby satellite Io. The largest crater on Amalthea is Pan, which has a diameter of about 90 km (56 miles).