How long is saturn rings

Saturn is not the only planet to have rings, but none are as spectacular or as complex as Saturn's. Saturn also has dozens of moons. From the jets of water that spray from Saturn's moon Enceladus to the methane lakes on smoggy Titan , the Saturn system is a rich source of scientific discovery and still holds many mysteries. The farthest planet from Earth discovered by the unaided human eye, Saturn has been known since ancient times. The planet is named for the Roman god of agriculture and wealth, who was also the father of Jupiter.

Saturn's environment is not conducive to life as we know it. The temperatures, pressures, and materials that characterize this planet are most likely too extreme and volatile for organisms to adapt to.

While planet Saturn is an unlikely place for living things to take hold, the same is not true of some of its many moons. Satellites like Enceladus and Titan, home to internal oceans, could possibly support life. With a radius of 36, If Earth were the size of a nickel, Saturn would be about as big as a volleyball.

From an average distance of million miles 1. One astronomical unit abbreviated as AU , is the distance from the Sun to Earth. From this distance, it takes sunlight 80 minutes to travel from the Sun to Saturn.

Saturn has the second-shortest day in the solar system. One day on Saturn takes only Its axis is tilted by This means that, like Earth, Saturn experiences seasons. Saturn is home to a vast array of intriguing and unique worlds. From the haze-shrouded surface of Titan to crater-riddled Phoebe, each of Saturn's moons tells another piece of the story surrounding the Saturn system.

Currently, Saturn has 53 confirmed moons with 29 additional provisional moons awaiting confirmation. Saturn's rings are thought to be pieces of comets, asteroids, or shattered moons that broke up before they reached the planet, torn apart by Saturn's powerful gravity. It might mean reexamining assumptions about how likely it is for a comet to have a fateful encounter with Saturn. No existing theory is satisfactory. Nadia Drake is a science journalist who specializes in covering astronomy, astrophysics and planetary science.

Already a subscriber? Sign in. Thanks for reading Scientific American. Create your free account or Sign in to continue. See Subscription Options. Go Paperless with Digital. The rings—which are mostly made of bright white water ice—display subtle darkening and coloration that can be used to help estimate their age.

Cassini snapped this partial portrait of Saturn's rings and moons in July From left to right, five moons are visible in this picture: Janus, Pandora at the edge of the thin ring near the image's center , Enceladus, Mimas and Rhea. Captured by Cassini in March , this edge-on view of a portion of Saturn's rings also includes three moons: Mimas at top , Janus just above the rings and Tethys below the rings.

In theory, a future mission to Saturn could dig out a rocky core from an old moon, one that preserves the pollution flux over time, said Tracy Becker , a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. But such a mission would be decades in the future. Dones said that the Dust Accelerator Laboratory at the University of Colorado, Boulder may be able to replicate this impact process and give us a better idea of the staying power of the pollutants.

Enceladus is an icy world that hides a subsurface ocean of salty water. Cassini measured the rain using two separate instruments. Crida said that perhaps the ice ejected by micrometeoroid impacts tends to reattach itself to the rings, while the ejected pollutants rain out. Becker conjectures that pollution is being preferentially ejected by impacts, regardless of whether the ice is reattaching itself in this manner.

But no one knows for sure. What if, said Crida, the pollution argument is correct? What if the rings have always been exposed to an unchanging influx of cosmic dust, and the rings are million years old at most?

Then we would have to explain how the rings formed so recently, which is a tricky prospect. First, we have no idea what created the rings, so assigning them an origin story at any point in time is difficult. But no such mission is forthcoming. The typical thickness of the rings is only about 10 meters. But their own stories are also riddled with uncertainties, from their origins to their ages. Epic floods leave South Sudanese to face disease and starvation. Travel 5 pandemic tech innovations that will change travel forever These digital innovations will make your next trip safer and more efficient.

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