Ask Me Everything1

Tell me morę: rlnged planets

rings?

One theory is that the materiał in Saturn’s rings was left over from when the giant planets formed—the materiał tried to join together to make a moon, but Saturn’s gravity pulled it in. Another idea is that this materiał was from a moon that was drawn too close to the planet and broke up.

^ Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune all have rings.

^ They are the four largest solar system planets and are known as the giant planets.

^ SaturrTs rings are by far the biggest: they are the equivalent of a rocky, icy satellite around 125 miles (200 km) across.

^ There is only enough materiał in each of the other planets’ rings to make a satellite around 6 miles (10 km) across.

Saturn’s rings

01:

H

2

02:

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C/J

03:

Saturn has seven main rings and hundreds of smaller ringlets.

They are madę up of particles and chunks of dirty ice.

The pieces rangę from around 0.4 in (1 cm) to 16 ft (5 m), the size of a Greyhound bus.

04: Each piece of ring materiał follows its own orbit around Saturn.

05: Individual rings are identified by letters in order of discovery.

06: The rings are less than 328 ft (100 m) deep, paper-thin compared to the planet itself.

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Blasts from the past

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