Jupiter, the fifth planet in our solar system and by far most massive, is a treasure trove of scientific discovery. Last year a pair of studies found that the planet's iconic Great Red Spot is 40 times deeper than the Mariana Trench, the deepest location on Planet Earth. In April authors of a paper in the journal Nature Communications studied a double ridge in Northwest Greenland with the same gravity-scaled geometry as those found on Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, and concluded that the probability of life on Europa is greater than expected.
Now scholars believe they have cracked another great Jupiter mystery — namely, why it lacks the spectacular rings flaunted by its celestial neighbor, Saturn. As a very massive gas giant with similar composition, the evolution of the two planets is believed to be similar — meaning the reason that one has a prominent ring system and the other doesn't has always been something of a puzzle.
