Rings of Uranus

The Rings of Uranus are a system of narrow, dark rings made mainly of dusty, rocky particles orbiting the planet. They were the first planetary rings discovered after Saturn’s.

Uranian ring system: The collection of Uranus’s rings, ring arcs, and associated small moons. This broader system includes the narrow rings and the moons that help shape them.
James L. Elliot: An American astronomer who led the team that discovered Uranus’s rings in 1977. His team detected the rings through their brief dimming of a star.
Epsilon ring: The brightest and most massive of Uranus’s narrow rings, with a strongly varying width and eccentric orbit. It is the system’s most prominent ring and has two known shepherd moons.
Rings of Saturn: A broad, bright system of icy rings surrounding Saturn. Saturn’s conspicuous icy bands contrast with Uranus’s narrow, dark rings.
Shepherd moon: A small moon whose gravity confines or sharpens a nearby planetary ring. Cordelia and Ophelia help confine Uranus’s outer epsilon ring.
Stellar occultation: An event in which a celestial body passes in front of a star, blocking its light. The 1977 discovery came from repeated stellar dimmings before and after Uranus covered the star.
Alpha ring: A narrow Uranian ring whose brightness and width vary around its orbit. Its uneven structure shows that narrow rings need not be uniform circles.
Rings of Jupiter: A faint system of dusty rings surrounding Jupiter. Jupiter’s diffuse dust rings differ from Uranus’s prominent narrow rings.
Cordelia (moon): A small inner moon of Uranus that orbits just inside the epsilon ring. Its gravitational influence helps define the epsilon ring’s inner edge.
Voyager 2: A NASA spacecraft that flew past Uranus in 1986 and returned close-range images and measurements. Its encounter revealed ring details and discovered two rings invisible from Earth at the time.

Linked from 2 pages