Science · 6 pages · 12 min
Why Saturn has rings that look solid
Saturn's rings look solid because a crowd of icy pieces overlaps in the view.
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From the opening
Saturn's rings look solid because they are a vast crowd of separate icy pieces orbiting together in a thin sheet. From far away the gaps between the pieces vanish, so the eye and a small telescope see a smooth bright band. The opening covers why a crowd looks like a sheet, why a solid ring cannot last, and what gaps and ringlets are.
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Inside
- Why a crowd looks like a sheet
- Why a solid ring cannot last
- What gaps and ringlets are
- How star occultations measure them
- Where the idea stops applying
- A distinction worth keeping
Sources
- Maxwell's argument that Saturn's rings are particulate
- Orbital shear and tidal disruption near the planet