Pictures of Saturn's rings
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Picture of the rings of Saturn. These rings are made from pieces of ice - ranging in size from microscopic dust to large boulders. The rings of Saturn is about 100 meters thick. The gap in the A-ring (at the top left of this photo) is called the Encke Division. A shepherding satellite (1980S27) of the F-ring is visible at the top of this photograph by Voyager 2.
NASA press release: (October 11, 2002 ) A new explanation for weird movements of two small moons -
Pandora and Prometheus - that shepherd Saturn's F ring.
Enhanced color view of Saturns rings by Voyager 2. Photographs taken using three different filters were combined to create this photograph. The different colors mean different chemical composition of the different rings.Picture of Christian Huygens - he correctly identified Saturn's rings as being rings.
Galileo's telescope was not powerful enough to see the rings as being rings.
The rings of Saturn are beautiful - even in black and white ! (Click the picture to see the larger photograph.)
Saturn's main rings are called the A-ring, the B-ring and the C-ring. (The C-ring is closest to the planet.)
4 Pictures of Galileo Galilei - he discovered Saturn's rings in 1610
Photograph by Voyager 2 of the rings of Saturn. Dark spokes are clearly visible in Saturn's B-ring. These spokes might be caused by dust hiding the rings below.The rings of Saturn are not perfectly round - the gravitation of Mimas, one of Saturn's larger moons, pulls the rings somewhat into an elliptical shape.
A photograph of Saturn's F-ring. Saturn's other rings are overexposed on this photograph in order to make the faint F-ring visible. Photograph by NASA's Voyager.
Picture of Saturn's F-ring by the Voyager 1 spacecraft.
Two narrow, braided (twisted), bright rings are visible. The bright areas are where the material in the rings clump together.
The twisting may be caused by two nearby satellites - one on the inside and the other on the outside of the F-ring (shown on the picture above this one.)
Why don't the smaller planets in our solar system have rings too?
The smaller planets do not have strong enough gravity to keep a ring system. The planets like Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars will also lose such a ring system because the MUCH stronger gravitational forces of the Sun will pull the ring particles away from these planets. (These planets are much closer to the Sun than Saturn)
The largest moons of Jupiter and Saturn also cannot have ring systems. Their MUCH larger parent planets will steal (using their much stronger gravity) such ring systems away, just like big bullies.
Some questions about these pictures of Saturn's rings
Lets see what you have learned from these pictures ...
- What does the rings of Saturn consist of?
- Are all the rings made of exactly the same material?
- Give the names of two gaps in the rings.
- How thick are the rings of Saturn?
- Are the rings of Saturn solid?
- How large is the material that the rings of Saturn are made of?
- Is the F-ring one of Saturn's widest and brighest rings?
- What are the spokes in the rings of Saturn?
- What are the names of two rings of Saturn?
All images are courtesy NASA/JPL except where stated otherwise.
© Copyright 2001, 2002 - All Rights Reserved Worldwide
This page was last updated on: October 2, 2002
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