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A ring system is a disc or torus orbiting an astronomical object that is composed of solid material such as gas, dust, meteoroids, planetoids or moonlets and stellar objects. Ring systems are best known as planetary rings, common components of satellite systems around giant planets such as of Saturn, or circumplanetary disks.
The rings of Saturn are the most extensive and complex ring system of any planet in the Solar System. They consist of countless small particles, ranging in size from micrometers to meters, [1] that orbit around Saturn. The ring particles are made almost entirely of water ice, with a trace component of rocky material.
Rings of Jupiter. A schema of Jupiter's ring system showing the four main components. For simplicity, Metis and Adrastea are depicted as sharing their orbit. (In reality, Metis is very slightly closer to Jupiter.) The rings of Jupiter are a system of faint planetary rings. The Jovian rings were the third ring system to be discovered in the ...
A pair of Voyager 2 images of Neptune's ring system. The first mention of rings around Neptune dates back to 1846 when William Lassell, the discoverer of Neptune's largest moon, Triton, thought he had seen a ring around the planet. [2] However, his claim was never confirmed and it is likely that it was an observational artifact.
The scheme of Uranus 's ring-moon system. Solid lines denote rings; dashed lines denote orbits of moons. As currently understood, the ring system of Uranus comprises thirteen distinct rings. In order of increasing distance from the planet they are: 1986U2R/ζ, 6, 5, 4, α, β, η, γ, δ, λ, ε, ν, μ rings. [13]
Indeed, almost all known planetary rings are located within their Roche limit. (Notable exceptions are Saturn's E-Ring and Phoebe ring. These two rings could possibly be remnants from the planet's proto-planetary accretion disc that failed to coalesce into moonlets, or conversely have formed when a moon passed within its Roche limit and broke ...
An orbital ring is a concept of an artificial ring placed around a body and set rotating at such a rate that the apparent centrifugal force is large enough to counteract the force of gravity. For the Earth, the required speed is on the order of 10 km/sec, compared to a typical low Earth orbit velocity of 8 km/sec.
Celestial spheres. The celestial spheres, or celestial orbs, were the fundamental entities of the cosmological models developed by Plato, Eudoxus, Aristotle, Ptolemy, Copernicus, and others. In these celestial models, the apparent motions of the fixed stars and planets are accounted for by treating them as embedded in rotating spheres made of ...