The Farthest Ring of Saturn... Prepare To Be Amazed.

a reply to: burdman30ott6

It is the Phoebe Ring. But until now we had no idea of its exact size. Now we know the ring starts at 3.7 M miles from the planet. From Earth, the ring is the apparent size of two full moons.

originally posted by: newWorldSamurai
Amazing. Have they used this technique to detect this around any other planets?

Sort of....but not through infrared imaging and the ring system is very different than this.

Using a different technique called transit photometry which looks for the dip in light as a planet (and in this case it's ring system) passes between us and the star astronomers have found an exoplanet with a giant ring system perhaps in the process of forming moons.

From back in January of this year: This Exoplanet’s Ring System Puts Saturn to Shame

The far ring of Saturn may be what is still left over from a larger ring system in it's far distant past.

originally posted by: Dr1Akula

The already known visible rings of suturn are just rocks (tiny to big ones) and dust orbiting the planet, but whatever matter this enormous ring is made of...

The bulk of the ring material starts about six million kilometers (3.7 million miles) away from the planet

...how can such a small (relatively) planet's gravity field sustain such a huge amount of matter in that distance?

Even if it is made of just dust and ice.... it's amazing (and beautiful to imagine)

Saturn is not a small planet at all. If you put Earth and Saturn side by side Earth would fit across the face of it 9 times and if you were to put Earths INSIDE Saturn? Well then you could fit 763.6 Earths inside Saturn!! WOAH! Pretty big huh?

It is the second largest planet in our Solar System. Jupiter is the only planet that is bigger.

The rings are huge but thin. The main rings could almost go from Earth to the moon. Yet, they are less than a kilometer thick.

Though Saturn is HUGE it is not very dense. Saturn could float in water because it is mostly made of gas. (Earth is made of rocks and stuff.)

a reply to: swanne

From earth the size of two moons? Can I just check if you're referring to the arc minutes of space the moon takes up looking out from Earth?

Thinking of the size of this new ring just blows your mind, my god how tiny we are!

originally posted by: Qumulys
Can I just check if you're referring to the arc minutes of space the moon takes up looking out from Earth?

Correct.

Thinking of the size of this new ring just blows your mind, my god how tiny we are!

That's right!

originally posted by: swanne
It would seem remaining at baseline would qualify as "non feeling" and perhaps not be a feeling at all.

Zero is as much a value than +1 or -1. Saying that is it a non-value would only be true if +1 and -1 were the only values possible.

Wow, you must really have a need to believe everyone has feelings. This sounds personal, but definitely not logical.

originally posted by: PrinceJohnson
Prepare To Be Amazed.

I feel nothing at all. NOTHING. And that's the way I like it- for now, anyway.

Well... you say you have no feelings - but you like it for now. Liking actually is a feeling. Either way, why would you bother wasting your time commenting about something you claim to have no feelings about. Just posting in this tread makes that statement false, but whatever.

For those of us who have a pulse - this is really cool! Too bad it's not visible to the eye though. It looks like a little solar system inside the solar system. Interesting find OP!

a reply to: swanne

Wow! That's is pretty damn cool! They should do this for Jupiter, too. The reason the rings are hard to see on Jupiter is because they don't reflect light very well. I'd bet that there are rings extending around Jupiter that go out quite far.

Heck, I'd say do it for all the gas giants.

a reply to: Dr1Akula

Actually Saturn's rings are composed of mostly ice. The ice reflects much more light than dust or rocks. That is why the rings are so visible. Contrast this to Jupiter, which has comparable rings to Saturn, but when we look at them it looks like a tiny belt around the planet.

Rings of Saturn

The rings of Saturn are the most extensive planetary ring system of any planet in the Solar System. They consist of countless small particles, ranging in size from micrometres to metres,[1] that orbit about Saturn. The ring particles are made almost entirely of water ice, with a trace component of rocky material. There is still no consensus as to their mechanism of formation; some features of the rings suggest a relatively recent origin, but theoretical models indicate they are likely to have formed early in the Solar System's history.[2]

Rings of Jupiter

The Jovian ring system is faint and consists mainly of dust.[1][5] It has four main components: a thick inner torus of particles known as the "halo ring"; a relatively bright, exceptionally thin "main ring"; and two wide, thick and faint outer "gossamer rings", named for the moons of whose material they are composed: Amalthea and Thebe.[6]

Fantastic image, it's really amazing, thanks for sharing.

originally posted by: pl3bscheese

Wow, you must really have a need to believe everyone has feelings. This sounds personal, but definitely not logical.

What??

Maybe Saturn is being terra formed by some kind of Universal God like idea or thought who put those rings there. Or maybe even some intelligent Alien species. The rings should have a reason for being there, one would think. Just saying.

~$heopleNation

originally posted by: Xeven
a reply to: swanne
Saturn is a worm hole. It's a gate.

Ok that's a new one. Could you elaborate or guide me where I could read about this. I find wormholes and stargates to be very interesting and plausible.



OP very cool! Saturn is one of my favorite planets. It's all the rings and moons! Mars is my favorite of course but Saturn is pretty cool! My son loves to look at my space books and Saturn is his favorite. He is 2!!!

Could Earth have a ring if we were able to look at it with the right equipment from distance Or is it too close to the sun for the solar winds to blow it away? Just a thought. I read somewhere we had one when the moon was formed.

a reply to: zazzafrazz

If we don't have a natural one, we sure as heck are working on an artificial one with all the left over space junk bits floating about up there!

a reply to: Qumulys

Tehehe, no doubt!

I'm referring though to fine particles. I'm probably wrong.

originally posted by: SheopleNation
Maybe Saturn is being terra formed by some kind of Universal God like idea or thought who put those rings there. Or maybe even some intelligent Alien species. The rings should have a reason for being there, one would think. Just saying.

~$heopleNation

Here's your reason for rings around planets.

The universal god in this case is physics.

originally posted by: zazzafrazz
Could Earth have a ring if we were able to look at it with the right equipment from distance

Or is it too close to the sun for the solar winds to blow it away? Just a thought. I read somewhere we had one when the moon was formed.

I can answer this two ways Zazz.

Earth has an artificial ring of stuff we put up there.

Earth does not have a ring now (we would have detected it years ago) however, a long time ago, way back when the Mars sized planet scientists call Theia crashed in to Earth 4.53 billion years ago, the early Earth had a ring of material which eventually became our moon.

Could Earth sized planets have rings? Yes. In fact we even know of asteroids with rings.

So although, the terrestrial planets of our solar system (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars) do not have rings, they could had they formed differently.

We expect to find terrestrial planets around other stars with rings.

What would the sky from Earth look like if it had a ring?



So what determines whether a moon forms or a ring stays?

Something called The Roche Limit.

originally posted by: JadeStar

Here's your reason for rings around planets.

Yeah I know, I have read it all before JS, and you know that I respect you a lot, but there is no concrete proof that without a doubt that is the case, Saturn is much too far away to know for sure, so it's all still just speculation for now.

Very good speculation that is backed by Science though, but yet to be verified. A few probes will not tell us everything that we need to know until we can get much closer, and for a much longer time. Titan really interest me myself, I have enjoyed the recent info about that mysterious so called Moon.

The universal god in this case is physics.

Well I believe that the Universe is God, if even our idea of a God exists concerning the question, which I personally believe that it is something that we humans cannot even comprehend, most likely natural.

However, You don't know my friend if physics play a part with Saturn or not. Once we get far enough away from planet Earth, it's nothing but reckless speculation to assume that our ways of conducting science can answer all of the secrets of the Universe.

Just take the two reverse cyclone like storms that are occurring on Saturn's North Pole? Actually JS, they defy the laws of physics, and NASA themselves have backed that statement up cause that is where I heard it first.

So let's not pretend that we humans, or even some of us, know everything about our own solar system because we probably only know about 10% at best about it and that is if we are lucky. ~$heopleNation

a reply to: mblahnikluver

Here you go:

www.abovetopsecret.com...