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by frankied on March 16th, 2005

frankied

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What causes Saturn's hundreds of rings to be distinguishably separate?

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Answers. 2 helpful answers below.

  • by riffraff814 on March 22nd, 2005

    riffraff814

    Shepherding moons.

    Gravitational effects from the moon help keep the edges of the rings sharp.

    Frankied -- have you spoken with Goldreich and informed him of this? He'd be mighty surprised to learn that.

    http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/saturn/faq.html#shepherd has more information about shepherding moons and how they transfer gravitational energy to act as separators in the rings of Saturn and Uranus.

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  • by frankied on March 28th, 2005

    frankied

    The question is not how the rings were created, but why they are separated into hundreds of distinguishable rings. The rings are obviously very planar, and the moons of Saturn not necessarily so - if anything, the moons would do more to "mix it up" and make the rings "wavy." The obvious effect is the gravity of Saturn itself - the moons may assist in a billion years of grinding, but once the material is ground down to atom sized particles, would it not be logical for pure elements to gravitationally accumulate into pure "rings?" Would the spacing not account for the gases?

    How is gold made? When discovered, it is found in pieces and chunks - what geological process causes gold to be found in nearly pure chunks vs even distribution of atomic particles? Does gold have a natural gravitational pull towards other gold atoms, causing them to accumulate?

    What other reason would there be for a detectable separation of hundreds of rings? Is it plausable that there is a ring orbiting Saturn of 24K gold?

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