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The concept that Saturn's rings are made up of a series of tiny ringlets can be traced to Pierre-Simon Laplace, [4] although true gaps are few – it is more correct to think of the rings as an annular disk with concentric local maxima and minima in density and brightness. [2] On the scale of the clumps within the rings there is much empty space.
A ring system is a disc or torus orbiting an astronomical object that is composed of solid material such as dust, meteoroids, planetoids, moonlets, or stellar objects. Ring systems are best known as planetary rings, common components of satellite systems around giant planets such as the rings of Saturn, or circumplanetary disks.
An artist's impression of Rhea's rings. The density of the particles is exaggerated greatly to aid visibility. [1] Rhea, the second-largest moon of Saturn, may have a tenuous ring system consisting of three narrow, relatively dense bands within a particulate disk. This would be the first discovery of rings around a moon.
The rings are named alphabetically in the order in which they were discovered. The main rings are A, B and C, with D, E and F being more recently discovered. There is also a very faint ring in the ...
Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily BeastThe rings of Saturn are one of the most iconic structures in the solar system. Composed of billions of tiny chunks of ice and rock that are as ...
Peggy is the informal name for a former moonlet in the outermost part of Saturn's Ring A, orbiting 136,775 kilometres (84,988 mi) away from the planet. The moonlet was discovered by the Cassini Imaging Team in 2013 and it may likely be exiting Saturn's A Ring. [1] No direct image of Peggy has ever been made. [4]
Christiaan Huygens followed on from Galileo's discoveries by discovering Saturn's moon Titan and the shape of the rings of Saturn. [14] Giovanni Domenico Cassini later discovered four more moons of Saturn and the Cassini division in Saturn's rings. [15] The Sun photographed through a telescope with special solar filter.
Saturn’s rings are seen as viewed by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, which obtained the images that comprise this mosaic at a distance of approximately 450,000 miles from Saturn April 25, 2007.