<P> 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 . </P> <P> The Jovian ring system is faint and consists mainly of dust . It has four main components: a thick inner torus of particles known as the "halo ring"; a relatively bright, exceptionally thin "main ring"; and two wide, thick and faint outer "gossamer rings", named for the moons of whose material they are composed: Amalthea and Thebe . </P> <P> The main and halo rings consist of dust ejected from the moons Metis, Adrastea, and other unobserved parent bodies as the result of high - velocity impacts . High - resolution images obtained in February and March 2007 by the New Horizons spacecraft revealed a rich fine structure in the main ring . </P> <P> In visible and near - infrared light, the rings have a reddish color, except the halo ring, which is neutral or blue in color . The size of the dust in the rings varies, but the cross-sectional area is greatest for nonspherical particles of radius about 15 μm in all rings except the halo . The halo ring is probably dominated by submicrometre dust . The total mass of the ring system (including unresolved parent bodies) is poorly known, but is probably in the range of 10 to 10 kg . The age of the ring system is not known, but it may have existed since the formation of Jupiter . </P>

Where do the particles in jupiter's rings come from