thumb|upright=1.6|Rings of Neptune imaged by the [[James Webb Space Telescope's NIRCam instrument]]
The rings of Neptune consist primarily of five principal rings. They were first discovered (as "arcs") by simultaneous observations of a stellar occultation on 22 July 1984 by Patrice Bouchet, Reinhold Häfner and Jean Manfroid at the La Silla Observatory (ESO) who were conducting a star occultation observation program proposed by André Brahic, Bruno Sicardy and Françoise Roques of the Paris-Meudon Observatory and William B. Hubbard's teams at Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory in Chile.
General properties
thumb|upright=1.5|The scheme of [[Neptune's ring-moon system. Solid lines denote rings; dashed lines denote orbits of moons.]]
Neptune possesses five distinct rings
Inner rings
Galle ring
The innermost ring of Neptune is called the Galle ring after Johann Gottfried Galle, the first person to see Neptune through a telescope (1846).
! scope="col" | N. Opt. depth
External links
- Neptune's Rings by NASA's Solar System Exploration
- Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature – Ring and Ring Gap Nomenclature (Neptune), USGS