Rings of Saturn
The rings of Saturn are the planetary rings around the planet Saturn, which can be seen with a small telescope. They consist of many small particles, ranging in size from microscopic to the size of a bus (or bigger) that form clumps that move around Saturn. The particles in the rings are made almost entirely of water ice,[1] with just a small amount of dust and other chemicals. There are some gaps in the rings. The moon Pan causes the gap called the "Encke gap" in Saturn's A ring.[2] The Cassini Division, discovered by Giovanni Domenico Cassini, is a gap between the A ring and the B ring. It is a product of orbital resonance.
Rings Of Saturn Media
The full set of rings, imaged as Saturn eclipsed the Sun from the vantage of the Cassini orbiter, 1.2 million km (¾ million miles) distant, on 19 July 2013 (brightness is exaggerated). Earth appears as a dot at 4 o'clock, between the G and E rings.
Detail of Galileo's drawing of Saturn in a letter to Belisario Vinta (1610)
Huygens' ring hypothesis in Systema Saturnium (1659)
Simulated image using color to present radio-occultation-derived particle size data. The attenuation of 0.94-, 3.6-, and 13-cm signals sent by Cassini through the rings to Earth shows abundance of particles of sizes similar to or larger than those wavelengths. Purple (B, inner A Ring) means few particles are
Saturn and its A, B and C rings in visible and (inset) infrared light. In the false-color IR view, greater water ice content and larger grain size lead to blue-green color, while greater non-ice content and smaller grain size yield a reddish hue.
Cassini space probe view of the unilluminated side of Saturn's rings (October 10, 2013).
A 2007 artist impression of the aggregates of icy particles that form the 'solid' portions of Saturn's rings. These elongated clumps are continually forming and dispersing. The largest particles are a few meters across.
A Cassini image of the faint D Ring, with the inner C Ring below
View of the outer C Ring; the Maxwell Gap with the Maxwell Ringlet on its right side are above and right of center. The Bond Gap is above a broad light band towards the upper right; the Dawes Gap is within a dark band just below the upper right corner.
Saturn ring spokes PIA11144 secs15.5to23 20080926
References
- ↑ "The Rings of Saturn". Csep10.phys.utk.edu. 1995-11-21. Retrieved 2012-01-20.
- ↑ "Cassini Solstice Mission: Pan". Saturn.jpl.nasa.gov. 2004-07-01. Archived from the original on 2012-01-19. Retrieved 2012-01-20.
