If the Earth had rings like Saturn.

[JFrankA]

I just came across this video (not on youtube, it's a link) in which an artist shows what it would look like if the Earth had rings like Saturn does, in proportion.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=75e_1258653471&p=1

It's very beautiful and what science he uses seems sound to me. I'm no expert so I'm wondering first off if his science is correct and would it possible to have the moon and rings or would that mess up our rotation or would the moon mess up the rings? (It would seem to me that they'd be pretty close to each other).

Anyway, it's beautiful and I wanted to share. :) Enjoy.

[Pure Argent]

Ooh, cool! I have no idea whether or not this is scientific at all, but cool!

[rjh01]

Not looked at the link but the moon would upset the orbits of the rings rather quickly. The Earth is only planet with a moon anything like its own size.

[shadron]

Yes, I would think that the moon's gravity would disturb the rings hugely, especially where resonances were established. We have a much larger moon for the size of our planet (which size affects where the ring system can be) than Saturn, or any other planet, does. It doesn't seem to have too much effect on LEO satellites, but over millenia the disturbances would be amplified.

Besides, I believe that we are well on our way to establishing our own ring system of nuts, tool kits (http://newslite.tv/2008/11/26/space-toolkit-is-visible-from.html), rocket engines and paint flakes. More like a shell, really.

[Denver]

That's a great video. I wonder how much rings like that add to light pollution and mess up the viewing of the Milky Way at night. It also makes me wonder how rings would have influenced early religions.

[JFrankA]

That's a great video. I wonder how much rings like that add to light pollution and mess up the viewing of the Milky Way at night. It also makes me wonder how rings would have influenced early religions.

I thought about the light pollution problem when I saw the picture of New York. I would assume that we wouldn't be able to see as many stars.

As to the early religions, that's a good question too.

[jasonpatterson]

Just imagine what it would have looked like following the collision that formed the moon.

[Tubbythin]

Much of the structure of the rings of Saturn are created by the moons of Saturn. The moons generally give small perturbations to the general motion off the ring constituents around Saturn that can lead to the gaps and to build up in quite narrow regions. By contrast moon/Earth ration is huge (as already noted) compared to the ratio of any of Saturn's moons and itself and this would stop any such ring formations persisting for extended periods.

ETA - Nice pictures though.

[JoeTheJuggler]

Also--FWIW--the artist's rendering shows the Earth rings substantially closer to the planet's surface than Saturn's are.

[JFrankA]

Also--FWIW--the artist's rendering shows the Earth rings substantially closer to the planet's surface than Saturn's are.

I agree. With the picture of New York, it looked like the rings were closer to the ground than the top of the Empire State. That looked rather odd to me.

I think he scaled it down so that the ratio would be the same, but I'm not sure that even with that, the distance would be correct.

[Bob Blaylock]

Not looked at the link but the moon would upset the orbits of the rings rather quickly. The Earth is only planet with a moon anything like its own size.


I was about to mention Pluto, when I remembered that it's no longer considered a planet. Pluto's largest moon, Charon, is so big relative to Pluto that the common barycenter is between them; and not, as with the Earth and its moon, within the main planet.

[Ladewig]

Also--FWIW--the artist's rendering shows the Earth rings substantially closer to the planet's surface than Saturn's are.


I was concerned about that as well, but when I looked up the Roche limit, I saw thet the larger size of our moon would put the rings closer to Earth (at least I thinkit is that way; I could have it backwards).

[CelticRose]

What a cool video!

It's an interesting idea. Fodder for sci-fi authors. :D

I wonder how much light rings would create at night. It seems to me that in the latitudes where they appear the widest they would be a significant light source.

[rjh01]

The Roche limit (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Roche+limit) is the The smallest distance at which a natural satellite can orbit a celestial body without being torn apart by the larger body's gravitational force. The distance depends on the densities of the two bodies and the orbit of the satellite.

Now suppose something happened when the moon was created and instead the rings were created instead. Would that be possible? So the Earth had no large moon, just several very small ones to ensure that the rings stay in existence.

It can be difficult to tell how far away an unfamiliar object is.