Have you ever drawn a planet? Surely in your drawing you have included a small ring that surrounds the sphere. Within the solar system there are 4 planets that have rings around them; It is a very striking phenomenon first discovered by the astronomer Christiaan Huygens in 1659.
But it wasn’t until 1970 that other rings were discovered on gaseous planets. What exactly are planetary rings? These are small loose particles, mainly gas, that are trapped between the planet’s own gravity, its main attraction and that of other bodies that are around it and exert a gravitational competition, which end up swirling around the planet. If you want to know which planets have rings and why they have this phenomenon, pay attention to the following oneHOWTO article.
Saturn’s rings
Saturn was the first planet to have rings seen; Although Galileo Galilei glimpsed a kind of handles or arms around Saturn in 1610, it was not until 50 years later that the Dutchman Christiaan Huygens managed to discover the rings of Saturn with scientific evidence.
Thanks to Voyager I and II’s voyages during the 1980s, the composition of these rings could be determined more precisely. But,how many rings does Saturn have? This planet has 4 main groups of rings and 3 more delicate groups, however, the Voyager I spacecraft showed that these 7 groups were made of thousands of smaller rings.
Do youWhy does Saturn have rings? The most accepted theory when explaining the formation of these structures is the one that states that the rings appeared when a moon as large as the largest satellite of Saturn hit the planet. The forces of the tide undid the icy layer that covered the moon and this layer formed the rings. You will find more information in this article on What the rings of Saturn are made of.
From left to right, these rings are the D, C, B, A, F (very small, but probably the most active in the Solar System) G and E.
Jupiter Rings
When answering the question of what are the planets with rings we should also mention the largest gaseous planet in the solar system. Jupiter has reddish rings that were not glimpsed until the Voyager I space probe passed close to the planet and was able to observe them correctly.
Do youHow many rings does Jupiter have? As they are? There are 4 structures composed mainly of fine dust particles: the inner o ring halo, where coarser particles are found; the main ring, the brightest and finest of all, formed mainly by the dust of the Metis and Adrastea satellites and, finally, two wider and thicker rings known as the fuzzy Tebe ring and the Amatea fuzzy ring, named after the material from which they are made.
The dust that forms Jupiter’s rings comes from the planet’s 79 satellites, known as shepherd satellites. These receive this name because they agglutinate the particles that form the planetary ring as if it were a herd.
Uranus Rings
Another planet with rings is Uranus, who has 13 main belts and additional incomplete arches. The rings of Uranus are very dark, so they are probably made of ice and other added dark organic compounds like dust. The ring structure of Uranus is considered the most complex of the entire solar system, as their belts are very thin and only a few kilometers wide, although they are optically very dense.
Furthermore, these they are considered young rings, since they are no older than 600 million years. Its origin is in the collision of several satellites that, when colliding, decomposed into numerous particles that were concentrated in the narrow belts around the planet. The rings of Uranus were discovered in 1977 by James L. Elliot, Edward W. Dunham, and Douglas J. Mink.
Neptune Rings
The last rings to be discovered were those of Neptune. The blue planet has 5 rings and because they are very dark and are not observed with great definition, only were discovered in 1989, when astronomers already had better equipment to observe the planets of the solar system and the Voyager II space probe was able to confirm the presence of these structures. These rings received the most relevant names in all astronomical research, being called: Galle, Le Verrier, Lassell, Arago and Adams.
The belt system of this planet is weak and dim, since its main composition is fine dust particles. Neptune has five dark rings by which various satellites orbit, and these rings are called Galle (in honor of the discoverer of Neptune), Le Verrier (in honor of the scientist who predicted the position of the planet), Lasswell (in honor of the astronomer who discovered the main satellite of Neptune ), Arago (in honor of the French mathematician and stronomer) and Adams (in honor of the astronomer who also predicted the position of the planet).
If you like astronomy, this article on What planets make up the Solar System will be useful and educational.
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