Rings of Jupiter Rings of Jupiter The planet Jupiter has a system of rings known as the rings of Jupiter or the Jovian ring system. It was the third ring system to be discovered in the Solar System, after those of Saturn and Uranus. It was first observed in 1979 by the "Voyager 1" space probe and thoroughly investigated in the 1990s by the "Galileo" orbiter. It has also been observed by the Hubble Space Telescope and from Earth for several years. Ground-based observations of the rings require the largest available telescopes. The Jovian ring system is faint and consists mainly of dust.
Rings of Saturn largest gap, separating Rings B and A. Several fainter rings were discovered more recently. The D Ring is exceedingly faint and closest to the planet. The narrow F Ring is just outside the A Ring. Beyond that are two far fainter rings named G and E. The rings show a tremendous amount of structure on all scales, some related to perturbations by Saturn's moons, but much unexplained. The dense main rings extend from to away from Saturn's equator, whose radius is (see Major subdivisions). With an estimated local thickness of as little as 10 m and as much as 1