NeptuneIn 1989, the first complete ring around Neptune was discovered in photographs transmitted by Voyager 2 to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the U.S. Dusty debris was seen to form a tenuous but complete ring about 17,000 miles above Neptune's clouds. The material in the ring appeared be distributed uniformly through the dark circle, though whether fine or large particles was undetermined. The ring lies just outside the orbit of one of the planet's small moons, designated then as 1989 N3, also newly discovered by Voyager 2. Only arcs - fragments of rings around Neptune, had previously viewed from Earth-based observations, which were also shown as arcs in photographs taken by Voyager 2 eleven days earlier.«[Image: Part of a 591-second exposure of the rings of Neptune taken by Voyager 2 on 26 Aug 1989. Two main rings and and a fainter inner ring are visible. Neptune itself is to the right of this portion of the image, but has been cropped as it is greatly overexposed. A second exposure by Voyager (not included here) shows the rings circling around the other side of Neptune.] |
