Talk:Rings of Saturn/Archive 1

Archive 1

Poorly written. confusing intro paragraph

I was reading this page having watched a show on Discovery, so I didn't want to make any changes cause - i have no idea what I"m talking about from a physics perspective.

I would suggest the following paragraph from the intro be changed, because it does not read well. Orig:There are several gaps within the rings: two opened by known moons embedded within them, and many others at locations of known destabilizing orbital resonances with Saturn's moons. Other gaps remain unexplained. Stabilizing resonances, on the other hand, are responsible for the longevity of several rings, such as the Titan Ringlet and the G Ring.

Changes: 1) "several" usually implies 3 to 5 or 10 in my mind. This paragraph explains that there are 2 of one type, then **many others**. I would suggest either "several" be changed or "many" be removed, cause they are inconsistent - and as a reader knowing nothing, i cannot figure out if there are lots of gaps or not, due to how it's written.

2) Stating "Other gaps remain unexplained", then walking back into stabilizing resonances and saying "on the other hand" makes me wonder other hand of what. this is an illogical and confusing jump. I don't know if it's that the "other gaps" should be at the end of this short paragraph, or that the explanation of the longevity belongs somewhere else.

3) "two opened by"..."others at locations", this isn't a parallel structure, which is normally not a big deal to me, but since I'm reading this without any pre knowledge, the lack of parallel verb is confusing. I would say something like: tow opened by known moons embedded within them, and others opened by the effects of destabliztion of the orbital resonances. (assuming that's what happened...) Thanks. --Kipruss3 (talk) 18:19, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Four new rings

IAUC 8759[1] (subscription required) lists four new rings of Saturn (R/2006 S 1, R/2006 S 2, R/2006 S 3, R/2006 S 4). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jyril (talk • contribs) 19:10, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Future of the rings

I saw on a BBC documentary that Saturn is going to lose its rings in about 100 million years. Are there any sources to confirm this? Serendipodous 11:17, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

All ring systems vanish eventually; that timescale sounds about right, at a guess. Saturn's system is pretty unusual though - there's some weird dynamics going on that keeps everything in place, and one or two rings are apparently still being refreshed by satellites (eg Enceladus). I'll look into this too, since the article seems not to draw too much attention. Was the programme The Sky At Night, Horizon, or something else? Knowing their source might be a good starting point. Spiral Wave 02:45, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

well maby the rings gravitational force will eventually pull parts of them together, maby forming several moons, or even eventally one large moon. Its just a theory, but does anyone know of any evidance to support it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.224.1.14 (talk • contribs) 14:49, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Uh, no. That won't happen. i kan reed 16:02, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Additional details

There's quie a bit on the Saturn page that it would be nice to see here. Formation hypotheses and estimated time, the bit above about ring decay over 100 million years. What's the total mass of the rings? I read in Analog that Saturn had no rings during the Mesozoic. What's the going hypothesis on when the formation happened? What will be their ultimate fate? Anyway, broad overview stuff (as well as the details of particular rings). --Aranae 17:41, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Locked rings?

Apparently, Saturn's rings will be locked with the Earth by 2009, i.e. we won't be able to see them as they will be directly side-on to us. Some astronomers at the University of Melbourne told me this. Has anyone heard of this or is there any evidence elsewhere to prove or disprove this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.101.149.30 (talk • contribs) 09:08, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Because Saturn's tilted on its axis like the Earth is, as it goes through seasons, it leans different directions. Since the rings are along Saturn's equator, they tilt different ways with the seasons. I don't know off the top of my head if we'll be seeing them edge on in 2009, but it is very possible, as it has happened before. However, they won't be 'locked' in place, and will continue tilting, until they're more visible again. --Patteroast 15:02, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Are the panoramic images too "overwhelming"? Please comment or "vote" below.

In my view, the panoramic image that I have added to the beginning of the article is the only one in the whole article that does the subject justice. However, I'd be happy to have it deleted if the consensus is against me. WolfmanSF 18:46, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Guide to layout#Images says to "be watchful not to overwhelm an article with images by adding more just because you can." We currently have four global views of the rings before we even get to images illustrating particular aspects of the ring system. I personally think that your addition of PIA08389 is much better than PIA07874, but I would suggest choosing one of them and putting it in the place where you put PIA08389. The size and placement of PIA07874 (as it now stands) is a particular problem, as it greatly reduces the prominence of the lead section.

Finally, only half of this "panoramic image" is actually an image. The bottom half is constructed from one-dimensional radio occultation data by assuming azimuthal symmetry. --BlueMoonlet 19:07, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

OK, I agree with you the vertical height of the image was excessive for placement at the beginning of the article. Having reduced it, I note that the image would appear to still be in violation of the image size guidelines. However, it seems to me that for some subjects (such as the Grand Canyon and the present one) a little bending of the rules might be appropriate. I think you are confusing "image" and "photograph" - the computer-generated radio occultation image complements the photo on top rather than detracting from it. Any further comments? WolfmanSF 19:38, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

The current version of Grand Canyon does not bend the rules at all, IMO. What I object to the most is having a picture above the lead text, rather than to the side. I don't think your reduction helps much. --BlueMoonlet 19:43, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I've moved the panorama to the end of the intro. I suspect you'll still object, but I'd like to get feedback from at last a few more individuals before deciding whether to delete the image. The Grand Canyon article does have an 1111-pixel-wide image, in excess of the suggested width limit of 300 pixels. WolfmanSF 20:27, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

You are correct in your suspicion.  :) Move extra-wide images below the first subject heading (as is done in the Grand Canyon article) and choose one of the two to exceed the width limit (I vote for PIA08389), and I'll be satisfied. --BlueMoonlet 20:31, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

That looks fine. --BlueMoonlet 01:07, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

How about making PIA08389 vertical and putting it on the right like at Mira, and remove PIA06536? -- Jeandré, 2007-10-26t19:48z

The pictures make this one of the most fascinating and awesome Wikipedia articles I've ever seen, don't change a damn thing. GrimmC (talk) 00:13, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Enceladus and Ring A

Saturn's Giant Sponge (NASA, 02.05.08) the paper is Farrell et al. Mass unloading along the inner edge of the Enceladus plasma torus, doi:10.1029/2007GL032306. Circeus (talk) 21:27, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Keeler Gap width

Keeler Gap says its width is 42 kilometers which is not consistent with this table… Which one is correct? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.149.51.1 (talk • contribs) 11:10, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Has there been a reply to this? The table indicates 35 km; the page text indicates 42 km (I am assuming the 42 is more accurate -- only because it isn't rounded to the nearest 5). Or is the Gap jagged and approximate (sort of how the F Ring is "bumpy and lumpy"? Tesseract501 30 May 2006

The Keeler gap's width is variable, so quoting a single number is probably futile. --CheshireCatCO (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 21:31, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Circular orbit?

I'm writing a blurb on conic sections for a science museum (in Guatemala City). I want to use orbits as one example. It's easy to find examples of elliptical and hyperbolic orbits, but what about circular ones? It seems obvious just from some of the better pictures that some (frictional?) process has all but eliminated any eccentricity from the rings - I'd wager that in general they're as perfectly circular as just about any precision-machined doodad, and that any deviations are more like ripples from the moons than like elliptical eccentricity. Can anyone back me up (or shoot me down) on this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.56.47.173 (talk • contribs) 20:44, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

The orbits of Saturn's ring's particles are circular to about 1 part in 10 million in the main rings, if that helps you any. Collisions work against the effects of gravitational encounters to find an equilibrium. 21:40, 7 May 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by CheshireCatCO (talk • contribs)

Yes, Saturn's rings are pretty

But do we need 5 pictures of them in every subsection? Serendi^podous 10:14, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

While in general I think we should try to avoid redundancy in selection of images, no article on this subject can do it justice without a good assortment of photos, in my view. The rings overall look very different when viewed from different angles. The ring system has many different components with different characteristics and appearances. Additionally, the Cassini mission has given us probably the most spectacular set of images ever returned by a space probe. To fail to take advantage of this embarrassment of riches would be foolish.

I'm curious about your deletion of 2 of the 3 opening images - what was the reason for that? These images of the whole set of rings were not duplicated elsewhere in the article. If the problem was one of placement, perhaps they could be moved to another location. WolfmanSF (talk) 16:48, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

The article was getting unreadable, at least in my browser. The pictures were crowding out text, and in some cases blocking it. If you want to put them back, then fine, but I'm not particularly fond of articles where the text consists of an undulating snake within a forest of images. I've put them back in the new physical characteristics section. Serendi^podous 18:03, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

This article needs a picture of the Cassini division, the most striking feature of the ring system. There probably isn't room for it to be included though. Serendi^podous 07:51, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

OK; I just moved the pictures around and added one. Serendi^podous 08:09, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Hirn's theory

What was Gustave-Adolphe Hirn's theory? Cutler 11:09, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

No mention of thickness? I was actually looking for that information but it is not here, I think this should be included. From http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=Saturn&Display=Rings "a thickness of about 1 kilometer (3,200 feet) or less," Vespine 04:41, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, that's way out of date ... they're more on the scale of meters in terms of thickness. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Astrostuart (talk • contribs) 06:51, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Saturn 2009 ring-crossing

A frame from an animation of Saturn viewed from earth in 2009. Click here for full animation (1.41 MB).

Saturn's rings will cross its orbital plane this August [2]. It looks like early July is a good time to watch the rings fade as their inclination to the sun approaches zero. I made an animation/simulation, if anyone thinks it might be useful. It should be an exciting time to watch over the next 4 months, including the Cassini spacecraft views! [3]. SockPuppetForTomruen (talk) 20:36, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Why are the rings approx. planar?

The Formation section should explain why the rings of any planetary body are approximately planar. I assume that the explanation is that satellites having orbits in planes other than the primarly plane, the one that happens to contain the most 'energetic' rocks, would be eliminated via collision over long periods of time with objects in the primary plane (the primary plane would change over time until only one planar orbit was left). I assume it, because it is not spelled out as it should be. Or am I missing something? Is there more than one theory for orbital rings being planar? David spector (talk) 17:06, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Image widths, number of images and gallery

Several images had specific pixel widths. To avoid dictating the widths to readers who may have set preferences different from the default (180 pixels), I have replaced all numerical widths by "upright=factor", where "upright=1.1" is about 200, "upright=1.3" is about 240px and so on. For what it is worth I find there are still too many images: with wide screen displays the non-logged user sees a long right-hand column of images below "D ring". Readers with narrower screens about 1000 pixels wide fare better. There is still the Gallery which has fixed widths. According to Wikipedia:IG#Image galleries such galleries should be either "revamped or moved to the Commons". -84user (talk) 21:21, 13 October 2009 (UTC)(struck through my misrepresentation. 84user (talk) 16:36, 17 October 2009 (UTC))

The gallery no longer has fixed widths. Regarding your comment that galleries should be either "revamped or moved to the Commons", you have taken that quote out of context and misrepresented Wikipedia policy on image galleries. What the image use policy actually says is:

"...the use of galleries may be appropriate in Wikipedia articles where a collection of images can illustrate aspects of a subject that cannot be easily or adequately described by text or individual images. The images in the gallery collectively must have encyclopedic value and add to the reader's understanding of the subject. Images in a gallery should be suitably captioned to explain their relevance both to the article subject and to the theme of the gallery... Images in a gallery should be carefully selected, avoiding similar or repetitive images, unless a point of contrast or comparison is being made. Just as we seek to ensure that the prose of an article is clear, precise and engaging, galleries should be similarly well-crafted."

all of which applies in this case (in my view). The policy then goes on to state:

"The gallery tag is not a tool to shoehorn images into an article, and a gallery consisting of an indiscriminate collection of images of the article subject should generally either be improved in accordance with the above paragraph or moved to Wikimedia Commons."

none of which is applicable here (in my view). The Rings of Saturn article has been criticized for having too many images. While I agree that low-quality and repetitive images should be excluded, I would like to point out that this is hardly a generic article where the images are largely window dressing and the vast majority of the useful information is in the text. This is a subject where images are particularly valuable, because of the variety of complicated phenomena they illustrate, some of which are difficult to concisely convey in words, and the wealth of high quality images available. I would suggest that image use policies intended for general application might not be fully appropriate in this exceptional case. WolfmanSF (talk) 07:26, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I completely misread that paragraph, striking my last comment. 84user (talk) 16:36, 17 October 2009 (UTC))

Theora OGG videos versus GIF

I noticed the animated GIF File:PIA07712 - F ring animation.gif in the Rings of Saturn#F Ring section was causing users to experience a 3.4 megabyte download each time they open the page. I understand this is due to wikimedia servers sending the full file instead of creating a thumbnail of GIFs.

This motivated me to figure out how to convert GIFs to Theora OGG files, because (1) Theora video files only load when the user clicks the "play" button, and (2) they are consideranbly smaller than a GIF (there is a slight loss of quality, which should not be noticeable at these thumbnail sizes).

Then I replaced the F Ring GIF with the newly created OGV file. This is the lowest quality OGV (it's only 96 KB), so if anyone wants to they can replace it with one of these:

• Low quality OGG Theora video at one frame per second: length 1m2s, 450×450 pixels, 13kbps, 96 KB
• Low quality OGG video at 2.5 frames per second: length 25s, 450×450 pixels, 32kbps, 96 KB
• Low quality OGG Theora video at 5 frames per second: length 13s, 450×450 pixels, 59kbps, 96 KB
• Medium quality OGG Theora video at 5 frames per second: length 34s, 900×900 pixels, 123kbps, 515 KB
• Full quality OGG Theora video at 2.5 frames per second: length 1m8s, 900×900 pixels, 199kbps, 1620 KB
• Full quality OGG Theora video at 25 frames per second: length 6.8s, 900×900 pixels, 2Mbps, 1620 KB

I was thinking of doing the same to File:Spokes-half size.gif, but I see there is already a File:Saturn ring spokes (captured by Cassini).ogv which looks Ok. Could that be used instead? Out of curiosity I downloaded the full 36 megabyte NASA movie from [4] and converted it to a set of OGV files ranging from 1 to 15 megabytes, but there seems little difference in quality from the existing OGV (apart from pixel size). -84user (talk) 04:45, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

What are the sizes of the files listed above? Do Wikimedia servers handle video and still images differently? I would try reducing the size of the animated GIFs, but lack the time at the moment. WolfmanSF (talk) 23:58, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

I think the OGV spoke video is a good deal longer than necessary. WolfmanSF (talk) 07:32, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Movie sequence from Cassini showing the F ring influenced by the moon Prometheus.

This video size: 2.5fps 6% 13kbps

Other sizes and bitrates: 1fps 6% 13kbps ; 5fps 6% 59kbps ; 5fps 32% 123kbps ; 2.5fps 100% 199kbps ; 25fps 100% 2Mbps

I have added the video duration, pixel dimensions and bandwidth use that Commons reports, followed by the source size in kilobytes.

Note that only the thumbnail data of OGVs are sent during page load, and these are typically small, here 9 kilobytes for the low quality ones to 28 kilobyte for the high quality ones. As far as I can tell, Wikimedia servers display a cached thumbnail for some file types: PNG, JPG, OGV; but deliver the full file for others: GIF (still or animated). This means that users do not experience a "large" download when viewing a page with thumbnails of the first kind, but get hit by the second kind. Wikimedia used to display cached thumbnails for GIF too, but this was disabled some months ago, leading to excessive bandwidth use in the case of large GIFs (even if only a small thumbnail is seen). This talk page is also affected: 1.4 megabytes is downloaded for each unique reader due to the GIF at Saturn 2009 ring-crossing above. I will soon replace it with a thumbnail. -84user (talk) 01:15, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Creation and usage of media files suggests offering multiple bit-rates. I have placed my attempt at this above right. What do readers think? -84user (talk) 01:58, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your effort in preparing the videos. I'd suggest using the medium quality video above in the article, and offering 2 or 3 other choices for smaller or larger videos. WolfmanSF (talk) 07:32, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Update: I finally got around to creating separate videos from the large concatenated spoke video. I then replaced the File:Spokes-half size.gif in the Spokes section with an equivalent small OGG video, with links to the full size OGG and to the GIF version (for those without a browser that plays OGGs).

I chose the size of 300 by 300 pixels for the low bitrate versions as a compromise between the 200 pixels a not-logged-in user would see (180 pixel default multiplied by the 1.1 upright factor) and the 330 pixels maximum size a logged-in user could see (Special:Preferences; Appearance tab, Files thumbnail size set to 300, multiplied by 1.1 again). Dial-up-users with modem speeds of 44 kbps might see up to one second of buffering on some of the thumbnails, which should be tolerable.

Anyway, here is the complete set of videos - five low bitrate ones and five full sized (note playing the full-sized ones in galleries or thumbnails is a waste of bandwidth and so are best used in links or very large frames).

• 21 August 2008 sequence: 7.5 seconds at 300 pixels and low bitrate of 51kbps
• 19 September 2008 sequence: 7 seconds at 300 pixels and low bitrate of 48kbps
• 26 September 2008 sequence: 7.5 seconds at 300 pixels and low bitrate of 48kbps
• 11 October 2008 sequence: 10 seconds at 300 pixels and low bitrate of 39kbps
• 25 November 2008 sequence: 10 seconds at 300 pixels and low bitrate of 52kbps
• 21 August 2008 sequence: 7.5 seconds at full size and bitrate of 528kbps
• 19 September 2008 sequence: 7 seconds at full size and bitrate of 545kbps
• 26 September 2008 sequence: 7.5 seconds at full size and bitrate of 471kbps
• 11 October 2008 sequence: 10 seconds at full size and bitrate of 470kbps
• 25 November 2008 sequence: 10 seconds at full size and bitrate of 372kbps
• All five sequences together at full 1016×1016 pixels size: length 44s, 1,888kbps

-84user (talk) 19:52, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Phoebe's position relative to its ring

The text of section "Phoebe ring" at present says

The ring extends from 128 to 207 times the radius of Saturn; Phoebe orbits the planet at an average distance of 215 Saturn radii.

seeming to imply that Phoebe is just outside the ring. However, in the illustration next to this, Phoebe appears to be right in the middle of the ring, radiuswise. Is this an error, or have I missed something? 4pq1injbok (talk) 05:00, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

According to the Spitzer article, the ring extends from 6 to 6+12 million km, which translates to 100 to 300 times the radius of Saturn. These numbers correspond better to the picture. (Phoebe's distance is correct: 12955759/60268 = 215). According to the sciencenews.org article, the measured extent is 200 times, and "calculations" indicate 300 times. 98.248.42.252 (talk) 06:23, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

In fact, the orbital inclination of Phoebe is 151.78° (to Saturn's equator): Phoebe is retrograde. Is that what the ring is retrograde like Phoebe ? He me seem, what the grains of dust who compose the ring turn in the same sens what Phoebe. One can said, what the "Phoebe ring" has orbital inclination of 151.78° like Phoebe.
--Jean-François Clet (talk) 19:17, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Image gallery started at Commons

I started the gallery Commons:Rings of Saturn and populated it with some of the media from the English, French and German wikipedia articles. I then linked it under External links. This means there are two Commons links, but they are meant to serve different purposes, hopefully: the gallery should hold a small sample of the best media available for each ring subject area (full view, subdivisions, and so on), while the category and its sub categories should hold the complete set of Commons images related to the rings. -84user (talk) 13:43, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Typo in Physical Chracteristics Section

Right now the Physical Characteristics section says:

The dense main rings extend from 7,000 km to 80,000 km above Saturn's equator, with an estimated local thickness of as little as 10 metres,

But the table and image below have the D-ring at: 66,900 – 74,510 km And the A-ring at: 122,170 – 136,775 km

At first I thought the 7,000 km was a typo for 70,000 km, which would make sense if the "dense main rings" started at the D-ring. But the A and B rings are outside of 80,000 km... so I'm not really sure either numbers are correct. I checked the citation and I can't find anything that comments on their altitude, I think that citation is just talking about their thickness.

Does anyone know where this information can be found? For now I'm going to mark it with a citation needed, since it's unclear where these numbers came from.

I think the discrepancy might be caused by some of those numbers being measured from the 'surface' cloudtops, and some from the center of Saturn. Orbital radii are usually given from the center of the body they're orbiting, but having the distance above the the 'surface' is also helpful in this case. Saturn's radius is about 60,000 km, and 66,900-60,000 gives the about 7,000 'above the equator' mentioned. --Patteroast (talk) 22:43, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Lede contradicts itself

Quote:

Although many people think of Saturn's rings as being made up of a series of tiny ringlets (a concept that goes back to Laplace),[2] true gaps are few.

Then, in the very next paragraph:

There are several gaps within the rings: two opened by known moons....

Either the authors believe "few" and "several" are synonymous, or there's something wrong with the lede. 174.57.203.45 (talk) 00:28, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

"Few" and "several" are synonymous in this context. The lede is contradicting the notion of "thousands of tiny ringlets". --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 01:22, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps removing the word "several" will make it less jarring. "There are notable gaps within the rings:" Or, "However, there are notable gaps...:"? 174.57.203.45 (talk) 03:58, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Thickness of rings

Can someone add information about how thick each rings is as well as the average particle size (and distance between particles) within each ring? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.199.241.212 (talk) 07:23, 8 February 2007 (UTC).

(moved from below - Spiral Wave) Thickness of the rings: It seems necessary to explain the extraordinary thinness of the rings. It is not surprising that tidal effects from Saturn bring satellites into the equatorial plane but it seems that this effect is not enough to rationalise the thinness. Is there a text book or paper that gives the physics of the ring geometry? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.44.203.129 (talk • contribs) 02:56, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I see there is already some information on thickness; even the thicker rings are about 100 metres deep; regarding how they got that small, it's just conservation of angular momentum and vertical settling. Saturn's oblateness probably helps too. I'll see if I can dig something up regarding this and the particle size. Spiral Wave 02:31, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Not quite. Conservation of angular momentum tries to keep the orbits of the particles on their original, inclined states. Collisions between particles, however, average out angular momenta and tend to put the ring's orbits into the planet's equatorial plane. In the absence of such collisions, you get a thick ring. You can find a discussion of the process in Stewart et al. in Planetary Rings (University of Arizona Press). 21:37, 7 May 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by CheshireCatCO (talk • contribs)

If a piece of ring material changes direction it would achieve a new orbital direction path, which would tend to widen the ring thickness. However if the velocity were changed, then the slower particle would be pulled down into a lower more centralized orbit, and thus create a gap. Conservation of angular momentum involves the 2 forces: 1, a centripetal force of gravitational attraction and 2, a centrifugal force vector which constantly opposes the centripetal force in magnitude and leaves the velocity of motion at a constant value.WFPM (talk) 22:47, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

The B ring is around 5-15 m thick, the A ring is around 10-20 m thick. Particle density is estimated to be bracketed between 0.45-0.85 gm/cm³. These come from simulations of the rings that should be published within the coming year. The size of the particles generally follows a b=-3 power law; the B ring generally goes from the cm-scale to ~10-30 m-scale, and I can't remember if the A ring is a slightly larger or narrower range ... this is based on the Cassini radio science (though this has not been published yet). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.173.246.84 (talk) 06:39, 30 July 2008 (UTC)--Astrostuart (talk) 06:48, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I've updated the text a bit, but didn't put in a ref for thickness. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 15:04, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I've updated the estimated thickness with a reference found here: [5]. Of course, the thickness applies locally, not throughout all the rings, since they are not all in exactly the same plane. It is thought, though there are many conflicts, that the overall thickness is as much as 1500 meters, or possibly more. I added estimated local thickness as a better indicator of how thin they really are at any one point.Chasingsol^talk 05:19, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

5-15 m thick! That is amazing! You could tie a rope around them and hold of for a ride! I wonder if many of these small rings only exist for short periods. Makes me question whether some of them were really created via outside scenarios (satellite dissolution) -- or more is Saturn more closely involved with continual ring formation? I.e., is Saturn still in the process of creating [or disolving] some of these ringlets. Tesseract501 (talk) 02:33, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

To me, the thinness of the rings is one of the most spectacular and salient features of the rings. I think it should be mentioned in the first paragraph. It would make the article less dry while at the same time not being sensationalistic. ATBS 06:43, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

It is not know why the rings are (1) nearly perfectly flat, (2) extremely thin and (3) self correcting in short order. Although various trauma and forces do affect ring character none of these explains these three facts that so shocked scientists upon close up inspection and none of these three things were predicted by scientists. It is a puzzle why these three obvious questions have not been answered by NASA or others nor have theyt ever been discussed. These things seem to be accepted without understanding. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.62.92.26 (talk) 15:20, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

The band Rings of Saturn

Why is there no article for the band Rings of Saturn? I am not the manager of the band, a member of them or affiliated in any way like that. I just like their music and was wondering why a page wasn't created for them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.233.1.22 (talk) 20:01, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

There was an article "Rings of Saturn (band)" that was deleted on Aug. 12 of this year. If you want to work at recreating it, click on the red link. WolfmanSF (talk) 20:34, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

cant, dont have an account

Thickness

The paragraph about "shattering the concept that the rings are paper thin" was added, but the first para in that section still cites the 10M figure from 2005. Długosz (talk) 21:09, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

• While the fact that there are significant excursions from the ring plane in a few places is an interesting new finding, the 10 m thickness figure is still basically correct for most of the rings. WolfmanSF (talk) 07:47, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Need to give best theory as to why the rings are (1) very thin, (2) flat and (3) self-correcting following a disturbance. Tidal effect is not any of this answer and naming something is not knowing either. We need to list these three unknowns. After all, we were surprised by the structure of the rings upon arrival of our probes so if we still don't know then let's say we haven't a clue.Rstafursky (talk) 08:06, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Holy prepuce

I appreciate that this is mainly a scientific article (and it should stay that way), but I thought it could be interesting to add in a brief historical excerpt to illustrate contemporary views when the rings were first discovered. During the late 17th century, Catholic scholar and theologian Leo Allatius (Allacci Leone ) published the treatise De Praeputio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Diatriba (“Discussion concerning the Prepuce of our Lord Jesus Christ”) in which he proposed that the Holy Foreskin had ascended into heaven at the same time as Jesus, and had become the recently observed rings of Saturn. Do others agree that we might make a short mention, and where best it might go? Contaldo80 (talk) 12:50, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Given that the scholar in question did not contribute to observations of the rings, and in the absence of any indication that the hypothesis in question circulated widely, I'd suggest not including this material. WolfmanSF (talk) 18:31, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

It might be placed in a future subarticle about the history of observation of Saturn's rings. Serendi^podous 19:17, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately Allatius's treatise was never published, the whereabouts of the manuscript are currently unknown, and the story that he argued that Saturn's rings were Jesus's foreskin appears to come from a 19th century book by two British atheists who didn't cite their source. Unless someone can dig up the text of the treatise we can't really verify what Allatius actually said, amusing though the anecdote may be. Muzilon (talk) 11:03, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

File:Saturn's rings dark side mosaic.jpg to appear as POTD

Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:Saturn's rings dark side mosaic.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on April 7, 2015. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2015-04-07. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. Thanks! — Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:27, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Picture of the day

A natural-color mosaic of Cassini narrow-angle camera images of the unilluminated side of Saturn's D, C, B, A and F rings (left to right) taken on May 9, 2007. The rings are lettered in order of discovery. The A and B rings, separated by the Cassini Division, are the densest; together with the C ring, they constitute the planet's main rings. The D ring is classified as a dusty ring, like the E and G rings (not pictured here), because of the tiny size of its particles. The F ring is a dynamic mixture of larger and smaller particles.Photograph: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Congratulations!

Congratulations to you on having your image recognized as a featured image. You deserve a lot of applause, recognition and appreciation. What a wonderful image.

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Why are important recent observations omitted from the section on historical observations?

The article gives credit to the Voyager and Cassini spacecraft for much of what it presents about the physical characteristics of the rings, yet neither of those spacecraft are mentioned in the section on historical observations of the rings. I propose that the section called "Ring theory and observations" be expanded to include an account of the observations made by the Voyager and Cassini spacecraft.68.106.184.199 (talk) 23:53, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

It wouldn't hurt to add a brief synopsis of the histories and findings of the Pioneer 11, Voyager and Cassini missions to the "Ring theory and observations" section. However, in general there is no advantage to subdividing the discussion of our current understanding of the rings into the contributions made by each of the respective spacecraft. WolfmanSF (talk) 05:58, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

I have added such a synopsis. 68.106.184.199 (talk) 09:17, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

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"disk" versus "disc"

I've reverted the usage back to "disk", which is more common in American usage, from the more British "disc", on the basis that most of the recent data on the rings has been returned by American spacecraft. The rest of Wikipedia is inconsistent; we have, for example, accretion disc but also circumstellar disk as well as disk (mathematics).

For a little of the history of the usage of the two variants, see spelling of disc and this link. See also the Wiktionary entries for both forms. WolfmanSF (talk) 00:05, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

I must say that's one of the more bizarre justifications I've seen for using an alternative spelling. "The most recent data was American so we'll change everything to a US-centric perspective.". Seriously? 62.255.248.225 (talk) 07:51, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

I was being a bit modest there. What I meant (and what should be obvious) is that virtually all our data, and thus our current understanding of the rings, is attributable to U.S.-led space missions. Does that register as having any relevance at all? WolfmanSF (talk) 22:31, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

For the death core band see....

Wish to challenge the notion that the name and the existence of this little known band "Rings Of Saturn - ROS" deserves a mention at the top of this page. This band is enjoying a measure of promotional enrichment from its being named after a scientific phenomenon which dwarfs both its popularity and importance on Wikipedia. Suggest that a generic disambiguation page be used for this alternative use of ROS (and hopefully any other pages on scientific phenomena which are being similarly used to promote aspiring indie rock bands named after them). This is all too common a sight on wikipedia astrophysics pages.Edaham (talk) 20:38, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Good suggestion. Thanks, WolfmanSF (talk)

Age of saturn's rings - in particular the C ring

New research by Z.M. Zhang et al (Cornell - 2016) affects currently included information on the age (and formation) of the rings. Include links on this subject below this line prior to editing article and citations. (Note to self, doing this at lunch time when I have VPN access. Thanks as always China). Much kudos and props to anyone who beats me to this on Google! (search keywords: Saturn's Rings Formed Dinosaurs)Edaham (talk) 03:52, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

link on!

• http://www.sci-news.com/space/saturns-rings-formed-dinosaurs-walked-earth-04331.html
• http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0019103516304316

voile Edaham (talk) 15:13, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

I have the PDF if excerpts are required. Message my talk page with email address for correspondence on this if nec.Edaham (talk) 15:17, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Since I haven't had any feed back from a regular contributer to this page regarding this subject, I will first ammend the article with a sentence and a citation to the effect that a new area of research puts forward evidence in support of much more recently formed rings.Edaham (talk) 01:02, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Ring plane crossing dates

A table of ring plane crossing dates, say 1600-2200, might be worth-while, if anyone here can find the data. 94.30.84.71 (talk) 13:53, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

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Merge

I've merged the ring pages together here. However, now there's a lot of duplicated images of this page, although the captions may be different. I'm not sure what's the clearest way to present them. Also, the layout of the F Ring images needs work, maybe we can just have one image for F Ring? Ewlyahoocom 15:26, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, the simplest thing is to delete the duplicated images and rewrite the caption of the one you keep.

I agree about the F-Ring but I can't actually decvide which should go. The Singing Badger 18:09, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I made them a gallery. Rmhermen 17:50, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Is there now an opportunity to create specific page for the Phoebe ring like in the French version https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anneau_de_Ph%C5%93b%C3%A9? Gains could be a better referencing and natural expansion of content. --RRaphael (talk) 11:48, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

French Wikipedia has separate small articles for every ring and gap in the system. I would discourage following that example, as it will lead to a lot of extra effort on the part of editors and readers for little gain. WolfmanSF (talk) 17:44, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

Missing images that should be added

here is an image from the unlit side of the rings - no such image on the page http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap121231.html

We actually have four images of the unlit side of the rings in the article. However, none of them have Saturn behind the rings, as your selection does. It's a nice one, and there are many more that would be good to include. The problem is, we can't include them all. WolfmanSF (talk) 08:05, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

here is the night side of saturn - there is a similiar image on the page but none like this http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap121222.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:15C0:66A3:2:21A:4DFF:FE40:38FF (talk) 07:04, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

The first image in the article is very similar to that, except that the picture you are linking to is in false color (it was created as a sort of "holiday special"). WolfmanSF (talk) 08:05, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

I would reccomend to add this GIF that shows clearly the location of each ring: https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/rings_diagram_discovery_order.gif — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.125.115.134 (talk) 12:48, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

Are there no close up images of the rock/ice/dust that make up the rings? I would think that if there are, that they would be highly useful to the page for the basic understanding of what the rings are, and what they're made up of. Sadly too many lay people think that the "rings" are actual rings. Even my niece's elementary school teacher once made that error when talking about the solar system. JanderVK (talk) 15:42, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Getting close to the rings is hard. Some of the better images we have for your purpose are two of the F Ring, #1, #2 and one of a propeller, #3. WolfmanSF (talk) 16:16, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Hmm, maybe include one of those images & maybe also give a short explanation as to why it is hard to do so? I'm guessing because the extremely fast debris would destroy whatever probe would be trying to take the photos? JanderVK (talk) 16:12, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Ooops, there already is a photo featured. Didn't notice the first time. 16:15, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

You could get close to the rings if you were willing to try to fly through one of the narrow gaps, but that would be dangerous because those gaps aren't completely empty. WolfmanSF (talk) 19:08, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Thickness of rings

"Its vertical thickness is estimated at 5 m ...".

"The B Ring is the largest, brightest, and most massive of the rings. Its thickness is estimated as 5 to 15 m ..."

"The thickness of the A Ring is estimated to be 10 to 30 m"

I read "m" as "miles" at first. Now, because it is in a scientific article, I am thinking that it is actually metres. Because a thickness of a few metres seems startlingly thin, I feel that "metres" should be written out in full (or, in the event that it really is miles, that should be written in full). 86.141.248.250 (talk) 19:37, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

It is really meters. Ruslik_Zero 20:47, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

"m" always means meters, never miles. WolfmanSF (talk) 00:20, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

That is patently untrue. What's more, in this instance, where a thickness of five metres is wildly unexpected, "miles" actually seems a pretty reasonable guess. 86.141.248.250 (talk) 23:12, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

From mile: "The mile was usually abbreviated m. in the past but is now sometimes written as mi to avoid confusion with the SI metre; road signs in the United Kingdom continue to use m as the abbreviation for mile." So it is a practice that is in use, even if it is a terrible one. Double sharp (talk) 23:28, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

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Age

Nothing is said about the age of the system. Cassini has shed some light on this, and if I remember correctly the system is now thought to be ancient. Anyone care to add something? kwami 12:19, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

There are some new ideas as to how the rings could be ancient, but the matter is hardly settled. This is one of several topics that should be discussed in the article, which currently is almost exclusively about ring structure. Others include particle size, chemical composition, numerical simulations of ring structure, and more. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 15:36, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

The rings are most likely much younger than the age of Saturn itself. A ring system as elaborate as Saturn's would have been gravitationally disrupted over the current age of the solar system, so it is likely the rings were formed when a moon or other body was tidally broken apart and dissipated into the system we see today. --Colliohn 12:33, 16 October 2008 (EDT)

Recent studies by the Cassini team have suggested that the rings recycle themselves periodically and so could have existed since the beginning of the Solar System. Serendi^podous 06:38, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Information reported from the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union indicates that two new measures from Cassini —- the light mass of the rings and an abundance micrometeorite soot coming into the saturnian system —- have made it clear that the rings must be young. (See "Saturn's rings are solar system newcomers" by Paul Voosen, | Science 22 Dec 2017: Vol. 358, Issue 6370, pp. 1513-1514 DOI: 10.1126/science.358.6370.1513) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2603:300A:1624:CA00:E87F:5793:E25:FA6B (talk) 16:40, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Age

Information reported from the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union indicates that two new measures from Cassini —- the light mass of the rings and an abundance micrometeorite soot coming into the saturnian system —- have made it clear that the rings must be young. (See "Saturn's rings are solar system newcomers" by Paul Voosen, | Science 22 Dec 2017: Vol. 358, Issue 6370, pp. 1513-1514 DOI: 10.1126/science.358.6370.1513) Although the preceding is mostly a quote, how could it be properly incorporated into the article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2603:300A:1624:CA00:5943:70E3:DC5C:FF36 (talk) 20:19, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

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What ansae are

This link exposits what ansae are. This seems important since the disambiguation page for Ansa Ansa references this page.

It is relevant to the scientific history of Saturn discovery, I think. --Thinkadoodle (talk) 13:44, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Huygens Gap

This is a great page to get detail information on the ring systems of Saturn. This is the best detail that I have found. Thank you for putting so much effort and info into it. It is appreciated. I have a questions about the Huygens Gap. The page text may indicate that the Huygens Gap separates the B Ring from the Cassini Division. If so, I am confused by the distances reflected on the table. The table shows the Cassini Division beginning where the B Ring ends. Doesn't the Huygens Gap begin where the B Ring ends and the Cassini Division begin when the Huygens Gap ends? If so, then the distances and widths may need to be updated. In addition, the widths indicated for the Huygens Gap (even the lesser at 285 km) seem to conflict with the outer boundary of the B Ring (i.e., the B Ring would overlap the gap). BTW: The table indicates 4700 for the Cassini Gap width, but the text indicates 4800. Thanks again for a great page. It has been very helpful to me. Tesseract501 30 May 2006. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tesseract501 (talk • contribs) 01:12, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Mass comparison

The article says, "This is as massive as about half the mass of the Earth's entire Antarctic ice shelf" - I'm not entirely sure but I think they may have meant "ice sheet". The ice shelf is only the portion of the ice that extends out over the ocean, while the ice sheet would be the entire sheet that covers the continent. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jjfoerch (talk • contribs) 18:13, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

More detail on observations of the rings

See the Journal for the History of Astronomy, 1/8/1998, Vol.29, Issue 3, On a pretended Observation of Saturn by Galileo, B.M.Deiss and V.Nebel, pp.215-220. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.207.6.75 (talk) 14:25, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

See http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1998JHA....29..215D This gives greater detail. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.147.142.64 (talk) 10:14, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

The Galileo's anagram does not match the Latin sentence

I'd like to point out that the anagram "smaismrmilmepoetaleumibunenugttauiras" does not correspond to the text "Altissimum planetam tergeminum observavi". If arranged in alphaberical order, the former is "AAAABEEEEGIIIILLMMMMMNNOPRRSSSTTTUUUU" and the latter is "AAAABEEEEGIIIILLMMMMMNNOPRRSSSTTTUUVV". The difference is in the two "V" characters that are present in the sentence (observavi) but not in the anagram. That anagram is indeed widely present in many articles on the internet, but I could not locate any scans of Galileo's original letters. That would help to understand if there is a mistake by original author, or some other explanation (ie, something like that it's Ok to write obseruaui). Passiday (talk) 12:26, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

What did Galileo write?

According to the article Galileo Galilei wrote to the Duke of Tuscany that "The planet Saturn is not alone, but is composed of three, which almost touch one another and never move nor change with respect to one another... " Did he not write "three parts" or "three objects" or whatever, but only "composed of three"? Only asking because it is an unusual way of putting it – and maybe the writer accidently left out the noun. Mieliestronk (talk) 22:18, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

The B Ring is the largest, brightest, and most massive of the rings.

What is meant by 'largest' here? It can't mean brightest or most massive, because they are listed separately. I can only think it means 'greatest diameter' which is obviously wrong. I see similar text ("THE B RING IS THE LARGEST, BRIGHTEST, AND MOST DENSELY PACKED OF SATURN’S RINGS." in the book "The Planets: The Definitive Visual Guide to Our Solar System" (DK and Smithsonian). Is this meant to mean 'thickest' instead of largest? Or something else. I think clarification is needed here. HotCommaQuick (talk) 13:29, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

Oh dear. ESA also describes the B ring as "the largest and brightest" at https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Scrambling_Saturn_s_B-ring

This is rather confusing. Does anyone know what 'largest' means? HotCommaQuick (talk) 13:35, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

Veritas

Did Roche propose this name for the moon that became Saturn's rings? Or does it come from some other source? Saejin's-toenails (talk) 09:58, 29 March 2024 (UTC)