Giant planets have rings. They were first discovered at Saturn - after all, it is on this planet that they have the largest dimensions. Already after this discovery, it was possible to find a similar belt in Jupiter - the largest planet in the solar system. The rings of Jupiter are not as massive and developed as those of the same Saturn, it is a much more modest system, which is almost invisible against the backdrop of a huge planet. Moreover, Jupiter also has satellites of various sizes.

However, the attention and study of the rings of this planet are still worthy. After all, they were discovered relatively recently.

Structural Features of Jupiter's Rings

In the plane around Jupiter, only one ring is observed, the complex layering that is present in Saturn is not here. The width of this formation is about 5000 km, but it is located 53000 km from the solid core, in fact in contact with the edge of the planetary atmosphere. The composition of these formations includes meteors, cosmic dust. According to most theories, these objects appeared due to collisions of satellites of the planet. It may also be the remains of an unknown satellite destroyed by Jupiter's gravity.

Large elements in the ring system are rare. Both assumptions may be logical. It may also be that the rings formed from third-party space objects drawn by the mighty gravity of Jupiter, flying by. And another interesting theory is that the rings are replenished with material ejected by satellites of the planet during volcanic eruptions.

Jupiter's rings discovery and interesting facts

The first person who suggested the possibility of rings on Jupiter was Sergey Vsehsvyatsky. He put forward this assumption in 1960. In 1979, the presence of rings was confirmed - they were discovered by Voyager-1, flying up to the planet. The first information was fleeting and incomplete, the probe was sent to study the planet, and not the ring system.

More detailed information was obtained in the 1990s with the Galileo spacecraft and the Hubble telescope. They were actively observed, also studied from the surface of the Earth, through high-power telescopes.

Observation of this object made it possible to establish that it does not contain ice fragments, as in Saturn, but namely dust, mainly stone. Despite the fact that the system of rings of Jupiter is much simpler than that of Saturn, it still does not consist of a single component, but of four. There is a pronounced main ring, two outer rings called “spider”, the ring is a halo in the inner part. It has been noticed that spider rings contain material from the nearby moons of Jupiter - Thebes, Amalthea.

In the main ring there is also material from satellites, there are dust particles from Adrastea and Metida, which confirms the theory regarding the appearance of rings in the collision of satellites with other space objects. But there are also extraneous elements of external origin in the rings. Like other giant planets, Jupiter’s rings are held by gravity and are in their same position, which includes the orbits of some satellites.

Thus, Jupiter really has its own ring system, mainly dusty, weakly expressed. It was discovered relatively recently, and today scientists continue to study it.