Why doesn’t Jupiter have spectacular rings like Saturn?

Question answered

Being larger than Saturn, Jupiter should have even more impressive rings. However, this is not the case and Jupiter’s rings are thin, inconspicuous streaks of dust that are only visible when Jupiter is illuminated by the Sun behind it.

If Jupiter had bright rings, they would appear even brighter since the planet is much closer to us than Saturn. – Stephen Kane, University of California Riverside astrophysicist

To answer the question, the researchers ran computer simulations including the planet’s orbit, its four largest moons, and our knowledge of how long it takes for the rings to form. The conclusion was that Jupiter’s moons are responsible for the lack of impressive rings.

Saturn’s rings are composed mostly of ice, most of which came from comets. If the satellites are large enough, their gravity changes the orbit of the ice and it either collides with the satellites or leaves Jupiter’s orbit.

We found that Jupiter’s moons would very quickly destroy any rings that started to form. Massive planets have massive satellites, which prevent large rings from forming.

In the Solar System, Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune have rings. In fact, on Uranus and Neptune they are so indiscernible that we discovered them only when Voyager passed by them.

Beyond their beauty, the rings help us understand a lot about the history of the planet, since they offer information about collisions with satellites and comets. The shape, size and composition of the materials reveal to us the type of event that formed the rings.

To us astronomers, it’s the blood marks on the wall of a crime scene. When we see the rings of the giant planets, we have evidence that something catastrophic happened and this material was found there.

The research is available on arXiv .