Are Jupiters rings visible in space?

Answer 1

The eccentricity is 0.04839266 which means that the difference between its closest distance to the Sun and its farthest distance is a bit less than 5% of the total average distance (this is much more than Earth's 0.0167 eccentricity).

Jupiter's orbit ranges from about 740.6 to 816.5 million kilometers.

Answer 2

Follow the link for the characteristics of Jupiter's orbit. Some items there are linked to explanations of terms that may be unfamiliar.

Brief explanation of some of the basics:

Aphelion is the farthest from the sun that Jupiter ever gets: 816,520,800 km.

Perihelion is the closest to the sun that Jupiter ever gets: 740,573,600 km.

Semi-major axis: Think of the longest line that you can inscribe in an ellipse. It goes through both foci and reaches either 'long' end of the ellipse. The semi-major axis is one half that distance. For Jupiter this is 778,547,200 km.

Eccentricity is a measure of how 'long' the elliptical orbit of a body is. A circle has eccentricity equal to zero. Jupiter's is .048775. As a reference, Pluto's is .24881; it was the most eccentric planet when on the list of major planets. Mercury is now the most eccentric, with an eccentricity of .205630. Earth's is .01671.

Orbital period is how long it takes for the body to make one orbit around the centeral body (the sun in this case). If it is not otherwise specified, the orbital period is sidereal; it is relative to the distant stars and is different from an orbit relative to our view of a body's relationship to the sun. The orbital period of Jupiter is 11.85920 years.

Orbital speed can refer either to the average orbital speed of a body, or to its instantaneous speed (its speed at any given moment). Jupiter's average orbital speed is 13.07 kilometers per second.

Inclination refers to how much the body's orbit tips up and down from (usually) the sun-and-earth's orbital plane, the 'ecliptic'. Jupiter's inclination is 1.305 degrees. For reference, Pluto's is 17 degrees (a very pronounced inclination) and Mercury's is 7 degrees, currently the highest among major planets.

Other orbital characteristics are somewhat complicated and difficult to explain, but you can learn about them at the link. They include 'mean anomaly', 'longitude of ascending node', and 'argument of perihelion'.

Answer 3

Yes. If the ring particles weren't orbiting Jupiter, they would fall into Jupiter.

The rings of the outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) are not solid; they are billions of fairly small particles. Each particle is in its own orbit, and the particles are nudged into this arrangement by the intermittent gravitational attraction of the various moons of the planets.

Answer 4

I guess you mean how far does it travel during one orbit. I suggest you look for the Wikipedia article on Jupiter, look for its average distance from the Sun, and multiply that distance by 2 x pi. This assumes its orbit is circular, which is fairly accurate for most planets.

Answer 5

Jupiter orbits about 5.2 AU from the sun. This is about 483 million miles or 778 million km.

Jupiter takes about 12 years to make this orbit around the sun.

Answer 6

Jupiter's rings were discovered by the Hubble Space Telescope, but you cannot see them with the naked eye.