Transcript: Where did the rings of the giant planets come from? Interplanetary debris has rained down upon the giant planets and the moons of the giant planets since the formation of the solar system four and a half billion years ago. Some of the giant planets undoubtedly accreted a ring of debris material early in their history, yet more of the material must have come from impacts of interplanetary debris on the inner moons of the planets themselves. Some of these impacts sandblasted the moons, leading to small particles that get ejected from the moons and spread out into a ring, yet more material that forms rings must have come from the disruption of moons entirely by a shattering impact. Thus, its possible that many of the moon systems of the planets have lead directly to the ring systems and that those ring systems have not been the same over the history of the solar system.