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The latter include the D Ring, extending inward to Saturn's cloud tops, the G and E Rings and others beyond the main ring system. These diffuse rings are characterised as "dusty" because of the small size of their particles (often about a μm); their chemical composition is, like the main rings, almost entirely water ice. The narrow F Ring ...
Fainter planetary rings can form as a result of meteoroid impacts with moons orbiting around the planet or, in the case of Saturn's E-ring, the ejecta of cryovolcanic material. [6] [7] Ring systems may form around centaurs when they are tidally disrupted in a close encounter (within 0.4 to 0.8 times the Roche limit) with a giant
Saturn's atmosphere exhibits a banded pattern similar to Jupiter's, but Saturn's bands are much fainter and are much wider near the equator. The nomenclature used to describe these bands is the same as on Jupiter. Saturn's finer cloud patterns were not observed until the flybys of the Voyager spacecraft during the 1980s.
Saturn has the most spectacular ring system, with seven rings and several gaps and divisions between them. Few missions have visited Saturn: Pioneer 11 and Voyagers 1 and 2 flew by, but Cassini ...
If you love looking at the stunning rings of Saturn, here's a heads-up: They're going to vanish from our view briefly.
Enceladus orbiting within Saturn's E ring. Plumes from Enceladus, which are similar in composition to comets, [25] have been shown to be the source of the material in Saturn's E ring. [23] The E ring is the widest and outermost ring of Saturn (except for the tenuous Phoebe ring).
Saturn's hexagon is a persistent approximately hexagonal cloud pattern around the north pole of the planet Saturn, ... called an anticyclonic ring, ...
Saturn's rings might have formed 100 million years ago when one of its icy moons was ripped apart by the planet's gravity. Saturn may have destroyed one of its moons to make its rings Skip to main ...