Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
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.
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.
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).
Cassini–Huygens (/ kəˈsiːniˈhɔɪɡənz / kə-SEE-nee HOY-gənz), commonly called Cassini, was a space-research mission by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Italian Space Agency (ASI) to send a space probe to study the planet Saturn and its system, including its rings and natural satellites. The Flagship -class robotic ...
September 18, 2024 at 1:43 AM. Earth may briefly have had a ring system similar to Saturn ’s over 450 million years ago during a period of unusually intense meteorite bombardment, a new study ...
Mimas imaged by the Cassini orbiter, February 2010. Mimas's surface is dominated by craters; the large crater at the right is Herschel. Mimas, also designated Saturn I, is the seventh-largest natural satellite of Saturn. With a mean diameter of 396.4 kilometres or 246.3 miles, Mimas is the smallest astronomical body known to be roughly rounded ...
However, measurements of Saturn's rings suggest a much more diffuse core, with a mass equal to about 17 Earths and a radius equal to about 60% of Saturn's entire radius. [47] This is surrounded by a thicker, liquid metallic hydrogen layer, followed by a liquid layer of helium-saturated molecular hydrogen , which gradually transitions to a gas ...
The Phoebe ring is one of the rings of Saturn. This ring is tilted 27 degrees from Saturn's equatorial plane (and the other rings). It extends from at least 128 to 207 [20] times the radius of Saturn; Phoebe orbits the planet at an average distance of 215 Saturn radii. The ring is about 40 times as thick as the diameter of the planet. [21]