The rings around Saturn are mainly composed of... How many rings does Saturn have? Minimal ring weight

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Rings of the planet Saturn with photo: how many rings, what they are made of, what they are called, size and speed, radius, list of rings, observations of Galileo, origin.

The discovery of rings around the planet Saturn was a real shock for scientists. Galileo Galilei first noticed them in 1610, but also the Voyager flyby in the 1980s. left many mysteries.

Saturn's ring system has billions of particles. Their sizes can be as small as specks of dust, while others resemble rocks. Some of them are responsible for the formation of gaps between the rings, while others are so small that they are not visible separately, but are woven into a common arc. Below is a list with parameters and you can find out what the rings of Saturn are called.

It is believed that Saturn's rings are remnants of comets and destroyed satellites. Each one orbits the planet at its own speed. It is worth noting that ring systems are also present in Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune. But in terms of scale and entertainment, Saturn comes first. Together, its rings cover 282,000 km in thickness.

Designation of Saturn's rings

The English alphabet is used for names. You can easily understand what the rings of Saturn are called, because they are named in the order of discovery and are located close. Only the Cassini gap stands out - 4700 km. The main ones are C, B and A. The Cassini gap separates B and A. There are also weak rings. The closest one is D. F is narrow, located near A. G and E are considered weak.

To get to Saturn's orbital point, Cassini had to go between F and G. To secure the device, it was set to autonomous control and all cameras and instruments were turned off. But the passage made it possible to obtain a huge amount of information about the rings and their appearance from the inside.

Discovery of Saturn's rings

Humanity has been monitoring the night sky for millennia, but it wasn't until 1619 that Galileo Galilei first noticed this planetary feature. But it seemed to him that next to the planet there were two more planets that were devoid of movement. He simply described Saturn as "the planet with ears." During a review in 1612, I noticed that the “ears” disappeared and appeared in 1613.

Fast facts:

• Location: Around Saturn's equator.
• thickness: from 10 m to 1 km.
• diameter: 280360 km.
• composition: millions of particles, including 99.9% ice with mineral impurities.
• Discovery: 1610 by Galileo Galilei.
• structure: 13 small rings separated by gaps.
• another: the rings are not visible every 14 years, because they are turned towards us.

In 1655, Christiaan Huygens used more powerful equipment and examined the rings in their true nature. It turned out that in 1612 the “ears” disappeared because they turned their tip towards the Earth. But in 1613 the angle of view changed, and they appeared again. We now know that this happens every 14 years.

In 1675, Giovanni Cassini noted that the ring does not appear solid, but is represented by several arcs separated by gaps. The largest one was called the Cassini gap. In 1859, James Maxwell calculated that the rings could not be continuous because they were torn by gravitational forces. He suggested that we encountered millions of small particles located in orbit around the planet. This was confirmed in 1895 in a spectroscopic review.

White dwarf planetary systems

Astrophysicist Roman Rafikov about disks around white dwarfs, the rings of Saturn and the future of the Solar system

Size and composition of Saturn's rings

How many rings does Saturn have? Observations with modern instruments show that approximately 13 concentric rings are concentrated around the planet. Most are named alphabetically in order of discovery (the Cassini rupture separates A and B). The part of the system observed through a telescope starts from D (66,900 km from Saturn) and moves to F (140,180 km). This is a distance of 73280 km. But dust particles can also be detected at a distance of 13,000,000 km.

The visible part is observed at a distance of 280,360 km, where the width of the rings reaches only 10 m and 1 km. Despite the scale of the annular area, the rings lack remarkable density. If we put all the material together, we would get the approximate volume of Mimas (diameter - 396 km)

What are Saturn's rings made of? Analysis of the rings shows that they are 99.9% filled with ice and a small amount of minerals. The size can resemble pebbles or rocks with the parameters of a house. The images obtained by the probes demonstrated that complex patterns resembling a spider's web can be found inside the rings. Most likely, the gravitational influence of the planet and satellites is visible here. Some shepherd moons orbit around the rings and form gaps. For example, the F-ring exists due to the activity of Pandora and Prometheus.

Origin of Saturn's rings

There are several theories about the origin of the rings. In the 19th century, Edouard Roche suggested that it was leftover material from a large planetary moon that had been torn apart by gravity. Using mathematical calculations, he determined the critical distance of the hypothetical moon. This is now used as the "Roche limit" and can be applied to any celestial body.

It is also believed that the rings represent matter left over from the original material of planetary formation. As a result, the fragments beyond the Roche line merged and created moons, and the rest went to form rings. Or there was a large satellite destroyed by an impact/collision.

The rings of Saturn are a system of flat concentric formations of ice and dust located in the equatorial plane of Saturn. The ring system of Saturn is the most famous in the solar system.

The history of the discovery of Saturn's rings

In 1610 Galileo Galilei was the first to see the rings of Saturn, he observed them through his telescope with 20x magnification, but did not identify them as rings. He thought that these rings were giant satellites of the planet, located on opposite sides of it. However, further observations carried out by the scientist over the next few years showed that these rings changed their shape and even disappeared completely as their inclination relative to the Earth changed.

In 1655 Christiaan Huygens was the first person to suggest that Saturn is surrounded by a ring. He built a refracting telescope with 50x magnification, much greater than the Galilean telescope with which he observed Saturn. Astronomer Christian Huygens suggested that these strange bodies were solid, tilted rings.

In 1660 another astronomer suggested that these rings consisted of small satellites - a guess that could not be confirmed for almost 200 subsequent years.

In 1675 Giovanni Domenico Cassini determined that Saturn's ring consists of two parts, separated by a dark gap, which was later called the Cassini fission (or gap).

In 1837 Johann Franz Encke noticed a gap in the A ring, which was called the Encke division.

In 1838 Johann Gottfried Halle discovered a ring inside the B ring, but his discovery was not taken seriously and was recognized only after the rediscovery of this ring in 1850 by W. C. Bond, D. F. Bond and W. R. Daves, it began to be called the ring C, or crepe ring.

In 1859 James Clerk Maxwell showed that the rings could not be solid solids, because then they would be unstable and would be torn into pieces. He suggested that the rings consist of many small particles. In her only astronomical work, published in 1885, Sofia Kovalevskaya showed that rings could be neither liquid nor gaseous. Maxwell's hypothesis was proven in 1895, thanks to the Doppler effect, by spectroscopic observations of the rings made by Aristarchus Belopolsky at Pulkovo and James Edward Keeler at the Allegheny Observatory.

Composite image of Saturn's rings D, C, B, A and F (from left to right) in natural colors from Cassini images on the dark side of Saturn, May 9, 2007.

Name

Distance to the center of Saturn

67000 - 74500 km.

74500 - 92000 km.

Colombo Gap

Maxwell's gap

Bond's slit

88690 - 88720 km.

Daves gap

90200 - 90220 km.

92000 - 117500 km.

Cassini division

117500 — 122200

Huygens gap

Herschel gap

118183 - 118285 km.

Russell's gap

118597 - 118630 ​​km.

Jeffreys gap

118931 - 118969 km.

Kuiper gap

119403 - 119406 km.

Laplace gap

119848 - 120086 km.

Bessel gap

120236 - 120246 km.

Barnard's gap

120305 - 120318 km.

122200 - 136800 km.

Encke gap

Keeler gap

Roche division

136800 - 139380 km.

165800 - 173800 km.

180000 - 480000 km.

The ring system is divided into several parts. These rings were named alphabetically according to the dates of their discovery. Thus, the main rings, moving from the periphery of the system to the center, are called A, B and C, respectively. A 4,700-kilometer wide gap, known as the Cassini Gap, separates the A and B rings.

Ring A (the outermost of the classical ones) has a very sharp edge, which is difficult to explain within the framework of old ideas about the dynamics of rings. In addition, several thousand kilometers from the outer edge of the A ring is one of the most amazing rings of Saturn - the F ring. It is very narrow, and sometimes you can see it twisted from several “cords” of rings. A study of the dynamics of these rings and small satellites close to them showed that it is the satellites that maintain the sharp boundary of the F and A rings (and possibly determine their other features). With their gravitational influence, satellites seem to focus the movement of individual particles in the rings, preventing them from falling out of the general ensemble.

The rings of Saturn consist of billions of particles, the sizes of which range from a few millimeters to tens of kilometers. Composed primarily of water ice, these rings also pull rocky meteoroids into their system as they move through space. The rings themselves contain a significant number of gaps and structures. Some of them are created by Saturn's many small moons, while the nature of others continues to baffle astronomers to this day.

Two tiny moons orbit in the gaps (Encke and Keeler gaps) between the rings and keep the gaps open. Other particles (tens to hundreds of meters) are too small to see, but they create helical objects in rings that allow us to see them.

Origin of Saturn's rings

According to the new model, there were several successive absorptions by Saturn of its moons, billions of years ago orbiting the young gas giant. Kanup's calculations show that after Saturn formed about 4.5 billion years ago at the dawn of the solar system, it was orbited by several large satellites, each one and a half times the size of the Moon. Gradually, due to gravitational influence, these satellites, one after another, “fell” into the bowels of Saturn. Of the “primary” satellites, only Titan remains today. In the process of leaving their orbits and entering a spiral trajectory, these satellites were destroyed. At the same time, the light ice component remained in space, while the heavy mineral components of the celestial bodies were absorbed by the planet. Subsequently, the ice was captured by the gravity of the next satellite of Saturn, and the cycle repeated again. When Saturn captured the last of its “primary” satellites, becoming a giant ball of ice with a solid mineral core, a “cloud” of ice formed around the planet. Fragments of this “cloud” ranged from 1 to 50 kilometers in diameter and formed the primary ring of Saturn. The mass of this ring exceeded the modern ring system by 1 thousand times, but over the next 4.5 billion years, impacts of ice blocks forming the ring led to the crushing of ice to the size of hailstones. At the same time, most of the matter was absorbed by the planet, and was also lost during interaction with asteroids and comets, many of which also became victims of Saturn’s gravity.

mmany people know that Saturn has rings, but few people know what they are T. There are three main rings that are clearly visible from Earth. Three others are also visible, but much fainter. The remaining rings are not visible from our planet.

All of Saturn's rings are huge blocks of ice. Interestingly, the length of the rings reaches 400 thousand km, and their width can be only a few tens of meters. The speed of movement of all blocks is about 10 kilometers per second.

The appearance of the rings changes annually as they are tilted 26 degrees to the planet's orbit. This explains why sometimes the rings appear wide to us, and sometimes they become a barely visible stripe.

The rings of Saturn have fascinated scientists throughout history.

• Kant said that they have a fine structure.
• S. Laplace argued that the widest belt of ice is unstable.
• And in the last century, astronomers found ten rings around the planet.
• D. Maxwell proved that not only wide rings are unstable.
• AND. Cassini theorized that the belts around Saturn were of meteoric origin.

Over the course of 29.5 years, the most “wide” rings were visible from the Earth 2 times, and 2 more times the most “thin” ones. It is known that the width of the rings varies and ranges from 10 cm to 10 km. The dust and ice particles closest to the planet remain motionless relative to it.

Information from Voyagers.

Early data from Voyager 1 showed that Saturn's rings have slight color differences. The so-called "spokes" - dark formations crossing the rings in some parts. Interestingly, the inner edge of the ring, located at the base of the spoke, rotates faster compared to the outer edge at the top of the spoke.

Thanks to Voyager, it was revealed that each ring of Saturn includes several narrow rings.

• The brightest of the rings is B. It also has the highest density of matter.
• The C ring is the least bright of all.
• The F ring is elliptical in shape and is formed from several individual “strands”.

A belt of ice, called G, is located near satellites S-11 and S-10.
The planet's entire ring system is stable. But, despite this, blocks of ice can bend inside the system in different directions - ellipse, spiral and other waves.

Why did rings form on Saturn?

Previously it was believed that a satellite approached it and was torn into pieces. Now everyone knows that the rings are a circumplanetary cloud that extends over vast distances near the planet. Satellites were formed from the outer part of this cloud. The fact that the rings are flattened is the result of the influence of two forces - centrifugal and gravitational.

The rings of Saturn are the most picturesque phenomenon in the solar system.

Who was the first to see the rings of Saturn?

The rings of Saturn were first seen by the Italian scientist Galileo Galilei in 1610, when he pointed a telescope he made at Saturn. He expressed his impression as follows: “Saturn has two ears.” Using a stronger telescope, the Dutchman Christian Huygens in 1655 saw what Galileo had not seen. He observed magnificent rings around Saturn, suspended in space.

As if suspended from a pale yellow-brown planet, the rings sparkle and shine in the rays of the distant Sun. Like Jupiter, Saturn is a giant gas world covered in a hydrogen atmosphere and icy clouds of ammonia and water ice. The surface of the planet is a liquid metal similar to hydrogen. The shining rings of Saturn are made of frozen water - ice.

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What are Saturn's rings made of?

They consist of pieces of ice of different sizes - from cubes that would fit in a glass of soft drink to medium-sized icebergs. When viewed from afar, pieces of ice appear to form several wide rings orbiting Saturn at 72,000 kilometers per hour. Before Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, which examined Saturn by flying past it at close range, many scientists believed that there were three or four icy rings orbiting Saturn.

The very first pictures sent by spacecraft turned out to be a revelation. Instead of just a few rings, there were several thousand of them. Here and there deep gaps were visible between the rings, but mostly the rings were located very close to each other, like the grooves in a compact disc.

Interesting fact: Each ring of Saturn is made up of hundreds of thousands of pieces of ice.

The cameras of the Voyager spacecraft were too far from the rings to obtain high-quality images of individual ice floes. But from the images it becomes clear that the rings are very thin: stars are visible through them. Another surprise. The transparent connections between the rings are pieces of ice ranging in size from one to ninety kilometers in diameter, which are called holes. Not to be confused with the real moons of Saturn. It is believed that the attractive force of the holes, together with the gravity of the real satellites of Saturn, determines the spatial orientation of the rings.

The Splendor of the Solar System

Saturn is one of the most mysterious planets for both professional astronomers and amateurs. Much of the interest in the planet comes from the distinctive rings around Saturn. Although they are not visible to the naked eye, the rings can be seen even with a weak telescope.

Saturn's mostly ice rings are held in orbit by the complex gravitational influences of the gas giant and its moons, some of which actually lie within the rings. Although people have learned a lot about rings since they were first discovered 400 years ago, this knowledge is constantly being added to (for example, the most distant ring from the planet was discovered only ten years ago).

Telescopes of the Renaissance

In 1610, the famous astronomer and "enemy of the church" Galileo Galilei was the first person to point his telescope at Saturn. He noted strange formations around the planet. But because his telescope was not powerful enough, Galileo did not realize that these were rings.

2. Billions of ice chunks

Ice and stone

Saturn's rings are made up of billions of pieces of ice and rock. The sizes of these debris range from a grain of salt to a small mountain.

3. Only five planets

Modern telescope

As you know, a person can see five planets with the naked eye: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. To see Saturn's rings and not just a ball of light, you'll need a telescope with at least 20x magnification.

4. The rings are named in alphabetical order

The D ring is closest to Saturn

The rings are named in alphabetical order based on their date of discovery. The D ring is closest to the planet, and then as it moves away - the C, B, A, F, Janus / Epimetheus, G, Pallene and E rings.

5. Remains from comets and asteroids

93% of the mass of the rings is ice

Saturn's rings are believed by most scientists to be remnants from passing comets and asteroids. Scientists came to this conclusion because about 93% of the mass of the rings is ice.

6The Man Who Defined Saturn's Rings

Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens

The first person to actually see and define the rings of Saturn was Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens in 1655. At that time, he suggested that the gas giant had one hard, thin and flat ring.

7. Saturn's moon Enceladus

Ice Ring Geysers

Thanks to the geysers that abound on the surface of Saturn's moon Enceladus, the icy ring E was formed. Scientists have very high hopes for this satellite, because it has oceans in which life may be hidden.

8. Rotation speed

Speed ​​decreases with distance

Each of the rings rotates around Saturn at different speeds. The speed of rotation of the rings decreases with distance from the planet.

9. Neptune and Uranus

Saturn's rings are not unique

Although Saturn's rings are the most famous in the solar system, three other planets boast rings. We are talking about the gas giant (Jupiter) and the ice giants (Neptune and Uranus).

10. Perturbations in rings

Disturbances resemble ripples

The planet's rings may provide evidence of how comets and meteors passing through the solar system are attracted to Saturn. In 1983, astronomers discovered disturbances in the rings that resembled ripples. They believe this was caused by debris from the comet colliding with the rings.

11. Clash 1983

The orbits of the C and D rings are disrupted

A 1983 collision with a comet weighing between 100 billion and 10 trillion kilograms disrupted the orbits of the C and D rings. It is believed that the rings will "align" over hundreds of years.

12. Vertical “bumps” on the rings

Vertical formations up to 3 km

Particles inside Saturn's rings can sometimes form vertical formations. It looks like vertical "bumps" on rings about 3 km high.

13. Second after Jupiter

Saturn's rotation speed is 10 hours and 33 minutes

Apart from Jupiter, Saturn is the fastest rotating planet in the solar system - it completes a full rotation on its axis in just 10 hours and 33 minutes. Because of this speed of rotation, Saturn is more bulbous at the equator (and flattened at the poles), which further accentuates its iconic rings.

14. F Ring

Mini-satellites of the planet

Located just outside Saturn's main ring system, the narrow F ring (actually three narrow rings) appears to have curves and clumps in its structure. This led scientists to speculate that there may be mini-moons of the planet inside the ring.

15. Launch 1997

Cassini interplanetary station

In 1997, the Cassini automatic interplanetary station was launched to Saturn. Before entering orbit around the planet, the spacecraft flew between the F and G rings.

16. Tiny satellites of Saturn

Keeler and Encke gaps

Two gaps or fissures between the rings, namely the Keeler gap (35 km wide) and Encke gap (325 km wide) contain Saturn's tiny moons. It is assumed that these gaps in the rings were formed precisely due to the passage of satellites through the rings.

17. The width of Saturn's rings is enormous

Saturn's rings are very thin

Although the width of Saturn's rings is enormous (80 thousand kilometers), their thickness is comparatively very small. As a rule, it is about 10 meters and rarely reaches 1 kilometer.

18. Dark stripes running across the rings

Strange formations that look like ghosts

Strange ghost-like formations have been discovered in the rings of Saturn. These formations, which look like light and dark stripes running across the rings, are called “spokes.” Many theories have been put forward regarding their origin, but there is no consensus.

19. Rings of Saturn's moon

Saturn's moon Rhea

Saturn's second largest moon Rhea may have its own rings. They have not yet been discovered, and the existence of the rings is assumed based on the fact that the Cassini probe detected the deceleration of electrons from the magnetosphere of Saturn in the vicinity of Rhea.

20. Minimal weight of rings

Appearances are deceiving

Despite the apparent huge size, the rings are actually quite “light”. More than 90% of the mass of all matter in Saturn's orbit comes from the largest of the planet's 62 moons, Titan.

21. Cassini division

Largest gap between rings

The Cassini division is the largest gap between the rings (its width is 4,700 km). It is located between the main rings B and A.

22. Pandora and Prometheus

Satellites contain the dispersion of rings in space

The gravitational pull of some of Saturn's moons—especially Pandora and Prometheus—also affects the rings. Thus, they restrain the dispersion of rings in space.

23. Phoebe's Ring

The ring rotates in the opposite direction

Astronomers recently discovered a new, huge ring around Saturn, called the Phoebe ring. Located between 3.7 and 11.1 million km from the planet's surface, the new ring is tilted 27 degrees compared to the other rings and rotates in the opposite direction.

24. A billion planets like Earth can fit in the ring.

The new ring is very sparse

The new ring is so sparse that you can fly through it without noticing a single piece of debris, despite the fact that the ring could fit a billion planets like Earth. It was discovered by chance in 2009 using an infrared telescope.

25. Many of Saturn's moons are icy

Moons formed from distant rings

Due to recent discoveries made in 2014, scientists believe that at least some of Saturn's moons may have formed within the planet's rings. Since many of Saturn's moons are icy, and ice particles are a major component of the rings, it has been hypothesized that the moons formed from distant rings that pre-existed.