The discovery of the Jupiter ring system

Abstract

Everyone knew that only Saturn (and, more recently, Uranus) had rings. Even models used to predict long-term stability of planetary rings indicated that the Jovian system could not maintain one [1]. Nonetheless, Tobias Owen, a co-investigator on the Voyager Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) Team, thought that a planet the size of Jupiter must have debris around it [2]. He postulated that Jupiter might have material about it in the equivalent region of Saturn’s B ring. Although most investigators thought that Jupiter did not have such material, Brad Smith, the ISS Principal Investigator, had his own reason to support such an observation. In retrospect, Dr. Smith stated that a search for a Jovian ring was not made “with any great expectation of a positive result but more for the purpose of providing a degree of completeness to Voyager’s survey of the entire Jupiter system” [3].