Discovery of Metis

Metis is the innermost known moon of Jupiter, a small, irregular body orbiting just outside the planet's thin main ring. It was identified by Stephen Synnott in images taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft during its 1979 flyby of Jupiter. Metis orbits within the main ring and is thought to be one of its chief sources of dust, since impacts of micrometeoroids on the small moon eject material that forms the ring. It circles Jupiter in a little over seven hours, faster than the planet itself rotates. The moon was later observed in more detail by the Galileo orbiter.

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