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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.
These rings were subsequently named the μ (mu) and ν (nu) rings. [16] The μ ring is the outermost of the pair, and is twice the distance from the planet as the bright η ring. [13] The outer rings differ from the inner narrow rings in a number of respects. They are broad, 17,000 and 3,800 km wide, respectively, and very faint.
The rings of Jupiter are a system of faint planetary rings. The Jovian rings were the third ring system to be discovered in the Solar System, after those of Saturn and Uranus. The main ring was discovered in 1979 by the Voyager 1 space probe [1] and the system was more thoroughly investigated in the 1990s by the Galileo orbiter. [2]
Neptune's rings are named after astronomers who contributed important work on the planet: [2] Galle, Le Verrier, Lassell, Arago, and Adams. [3][4] Neptune also has a faint unnamed ring coincident with the orbit of the moon Galatea. Three other moons orbit between the rings: Naiad, Thalassa and Despina. [4]
e. The Van Allen radiation belt is a zone of energetic charged particles, most of which originate from the solar wind, that are captured by and held around a planet by that planet's magnetosphere. Earth has two such belts, and sometimes others may be temporarily created.
The main rings are, working outward from the planet, C, B and A, with the Cassini Division, the largest gap, separating Rings B and A. Several fainter rings were discovered more recently. The D Ring is exceedingly faint and closest to the planet. The narrow F Ring is just outside the A Ring. Beyond that are two far fainter rings named G and E.
The outer retrograde moons are all named after characters from one play, The Tempest; the sole known outer prograde moon, Margaret, is named from Much Ado About Nothing. [ 19 ] Some asteroids , also named after the same Shakespearean characters, share names with moons of Uranus: 171 Ophelia , 218 Bianca , 593 Titania , 666 Desdemona , 763 ...
The Oort cloud (/ ɔːrt, ʊərt /), [1] sometimes called the Öpik–Oort cloud, [2] is theorized to be a vast cloud of icy planetesimals surrounding the Sun at distances ranging from 2,000 to 200,000 AU (0.03 to 3.2 light-years). [3][note 1][4] The concept of such a cloud was proposed in 1950 by the Dutch astronomer Jan Oort, in whose honor ...