planetary ring
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- Key People:
- James Clerk Maxwell
- Christiaan Huygens
- James Keeler
- Related Topics:
- planet
- moon
- Roche limit
- ring arc
planetary ring, a disklike aggregation of particles and larger objects that orbit a planet’s equator.
Rings in the solar system
The planetary rings in the solar system occur around the gas planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. These rings vary in their composition and size. Rings are also found around some dwarf planets and bodies that are too small to be considered planets.
Saturn’s rings were first observed in 1610 by Galileo. However, his telescope was not powerful enough to distinguish the rings. Rather, Saturn seemed to be three objects in a row, the central object being larger than the other two. In 1655 Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens, using a better telescope, saw that Saturn had a ring. Saturn’s rings, which are made of rock, ice, and dust, are the most well-studied planetary rings.
Saturn’s rings are very wide, stretching horizontally outward from the planet for 282,000 km (175,000 miles), although they are very thin—only 10 meters (33 feet) from top to bottom in some places. The objects that make up these rings range from tiny particles to clumps measuring kilometers in diameter. Moreover, the rings are not uniform in vertical height: some large objects even cast shadows on the ring.
The rings of the other three large planets are much narrower than Saturn’s and were not seen until the 20th century. The rings of Uranus were discovered in 1977 by astronomers observing the dimming of a star as the rings passed in front of it. Jupiter’s ring was discovered in 1979 by the Voyager 1 spacecraft. Neptune’s rings were first observed through a dimming star in 1984 and were later confirmed by Voyager 2 in 1989.
Composition and formation
The materials that make up planetary rings generally include dust, rock, and ice of variable size, but planetary rings are not uniform in their makeup. Variation occurs between planets, between rings, and within a ring, and the materials that make up a ring can change over time. Scientists continue to identify new types of activity moving materials into, within, and out of planetary rings.
Rings are thought to be temporary, and, over time, the gravitational pull between objects can make them fall into their parent object or accrue into a larger object that would orbit as a satellite, or small moon. For example, Saturn’s rings are only a few hundred million years old. The material of the rings is falling into Saturn, and the rings are expected to last only another few hundred million years.
The material makeup of planetary rings is a dynamic feature that can also change over time. For example, the Cassini mission documented that some particles join the rings when lost by moons. Most notably, ice ejected from the subsurface ocean of Saturn’s moon Enceladus is the source of the planet’s diffuse E ring.
Planetary rings form within a planet’s Roche limit, which is the distance from a planet within which tidal forces can pull a satellite object apart. The Roche limit differs for each planet according to its size. It increases linearly with the planet’s radius and as the cube root of the ratio of the planet’s density to the satellite’s density. Interestingly, scientists have discovered two rings around the trans-Neptunian object Quaoar that are outside the Roche limit for the parent object; all other known planetary rings are inside the Roche limit. On the basis of these findings, scientists suggest that materials with particular elastic properties could form rings beyond a planet’s Roche limit.
Planetary rings can also form when a great quantity of small particles and objects are generated near a planet from collisions, such as between a comet or an asteroid and the planet, between a moon and another object, or during the original process of planet formation. Scientists also think that swarms of small objects can form near planets through tidal stripping of a comet that passes nearby.
Planetary rings form at a planet’s equator. A planet’s rotation causes the equator to bulge slightly, making this the plane at which objects are most likely to orbit. Generally, the objects that make up rings orbit in a swarm in which vertical movement is extremely limited relative to horizontal orbital movement. Thus, rings are very thin vertically.