Does Jupiter have rings?
Yes, Jupiter has rings, but they are thin, faint and dark, made mostly of fine dust. They were discovered by NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft in 1979.
Jupiter's ring system has three main parts: a flat main ring, a cloud-like inner halo and two faint outer gossamer rings. The dust comes from small inner moons, such as Metis, Adrastea, Amalthea and Thebe, when tiny meteorites strike their surfaces and knock material into orbit.
Unlike Saturn's bright rings of water ice, Jupiter's rings reflect very little sunlight, so they cannot be seen with backyard telescopes. They show up best when lit from behind by the Sun, which is how spacecraft photographed them.
All the giant planets have rings
Saturn, Uranus and Neptune also have rings. Uranus's rings were found in 1977 when they blocked the light of a star, and Neptune's were confirmed by Voyager 2 in 1989. Saturn's are simply the largest and brightest by far.
Did You Know?
The James Webb Space Telescope has taken infrared images that show Jupiter's faint rings and auroras more clearly than ever before.