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Other evidence shows rings A to C have a broad range of particle sizes, up to m across. The dense main rings extend from 7,000 km (4,300 mi) to 80,000 km (50,000 mi) away from Saturn's equator, whose radius is 60,300 km (37,500 mi) (see Major subdivisions).
Rings, ringlets and gaps of width less than 1000 km are listed by inner edge radius. For more details on the rings and a full listing of all small ringlets and very faint rings, see the PDS Rings Node Vital Statistics.
Radius (km)Radius/ Eq. RadiusOptical DepthSaturn Equator60,2681.000D inner edge66,9001.110D outer edge74,5101.236C inner edge74,6581.239- Part 1
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- Part 8 - Bibliography
One of Saturn's most prominent features is the set of rings thatencircle the planet. In the past few years, we've discovered that ALLof the major planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) have ringsystems, and they're all different. Saturn has the largest and mostspectacular system of rings, though -- the others aren't as easy to see. From loo...
Last time I covered some basic facts about the rings: 1. They're not solid, but rather are composed of chunks of water ice,ranging from the size of an automobile or small building down to the aninch or smaller (including some microscopic dust). 2. The rings are very thin -- maybe just 100 yards or so in thickness. 3. We see the rings at different a...
SHEPHERDING MOONS
A theory was proposed in 1979 that the narrow rings might be due towhat are called "shepherding moons". It turns out that when you havea small moon orbiting Saturn just outside one of the rings, thegravitational pull of the moon on the ring particles will try to pushthe ring particles into smaller orbits; it's as if the moon "repels"the ring particles so make them orbit closer to Saturn. Similarly,if there is a small moon just inside one of the rings, the gravitationalpull of the moon on the...
EMBEDDED MOONS
The wider Encke gap is caused by the gravity from a moon called Pan.Pan orbits Saturn within the Encke gap; its gravity causes ring"inside" particles (closer to Saturn) to be pushed into smaller orbits,and "outside particles (farther from Saturn) to be pushed into largerorbits, resulting in the Encke gap. I've attached a picture taken byCassini that shows the Encke gap (the larger of the two gaps, on theright). You can see the moon Pan inside the gap. To the left in the same picture, you can...
PICTURE OF ALL THE RINGS
Above:Backlit picture of Saturn, as seen from the Cassini spacecraft. Above:Backlit picture of Saturn, with captions.
SPOKES
When the Cassini spacecraft arrived at Saturn in 2004, the spokes were nowhere tobe found. None of the early pictures returned by Cassini showed these spokefeatures, so they seem to have disappeared since Voyager 2 visited Saturn.We've since seen them re-appear, though. There's still a lot we don't understand about the spokes. What we have learnedis that they are made of very small dust particles, less than one micron(1/1000 millimeter) across. It's believed that the spoke particles have aneg...
SIZES OF THE RINGS
Diameter (distance across a ring): We typically measure distances inSaturn radii, where 1 Saturn radius is 60,268 kilometers = 37,449miles. (For comparison, the radius of the Earth is about 6378kilometers = 3963 miles.) In the first set of notes I sent you, I gaveyou the inner and outer radii of each ring, in Saturn radii. If youmultiply the outer radius by 2, that will tell you the diameter of eachring, in Saturn radii. Multiply that number by 60,268 to get the ringdiameter in kilometers, or...
RING WAVES
There are two types of waves: "spiral density waves", and "spiral bending waves"
GENERAL
1. Beatty, J. Kelly, Collins, Carolyn, and Chaiken, Andrew. (1999) The New Solar System(4th ed.) (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.) 2. Burns, Joseph A., Hamilton, Douglas P., and Showalter, Mark R. (2002) "Bejeweled Worlds". Scientific American, February 2002, pp. 64-73. 3. Elliot, James, and Kerr, Richard. (1984) Rings. (MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.) 4. Lunine, Jonathan I. "Saturn at Last!" (2004) Scientific American, June 2004, pp. 56-63.
ADVANCED
1. Esposito, Larry. (2006) Planetary Rings. (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.) 2. Fridman, A.M., and Gorkavyi, N.N. (1994) Physics of Planetary Rings. (Springer, Berlin.) 3. Gehrels, Tom, and Matthews, Mildred Shapley (Eds.). (1984) Saturn. (University of Arizona Press, Tucson.) 4. Greenberg, Richard, and Brahic, André (Eds.). (1984) Planetary Rings. (University of Arizona Press, Tucson.) 5. Miner, Ellis D., Wessen, Randii R., and Cuzzi, Jeffrey N. (2007) Planetary Ring Systems. (Pr...
The rings of Saturn are very broad, with an inner radius of 69,000 km and an outer radius of 213,000 km (from 1.14 to 3.53 times Saturn's equatorial radius), and they are thin, with a thickness as small as 100m.
Jun 23, 2023 · The Phoebe ring is about 100 to 270 times the radius of Saturn, which makes it about 3.75 million to 10.1 million miles (6 million to 16.2 million kilometers) from the planet. For comparison, the average distance between Earth and its moon is 238,855 miles, or 384,400 kilometers.
Nov 8, 2017 · Composition and structure. Saturn's rings are made up of billions of particles ranging from grains of sand to mountain-size chunks. Composed predominantly of water-ice, the rings also draw in...
Aug 29, 2005 · The rings of Saturn make up an enormous, complex structure that – from edge-to-edge – is wider than the distance from Earth to the Moon. The seven main rings are labeled in the order in which they were discovered; from the planet outward, they are D, C, B, A, F, G and E.
