Why does Jupiter have rings? Jupiter's rings were discovered in 1979 by the passing Voyager 1 spacecraft , but their origin has always been a mystery. Recent data from the Galileo spacecraft currently orbiting Jupiter now confirms that these rings were created by meteoroid impacts on small nearby moons . As a small meteoroid strikes tiny Adrastea , for example, it will bore into the moon, vaporize, and explode dirt and dust off into a Jovian orbit . Pictured above is an eclipse of the Sun by Jupiter, as viewed from Galileo. Small dust particles high in Jupiter's atmosphere , as well as the dust particles that compose the rings , can be seen by reflected sunlight .
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Credit: M. Belton (NOAO), J. Burns (Cornell) et al., Galileo Project, JPL, NASA