Talk:Planetary ring

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Is this purely a gas giant phenomenon? Or can rocky planets accrete a disk? — Jack · talk · 02:48, Monday, 9 April 2007

Yes they can. It is assumed the Earth had a ring system after the impact with Theia.

[edit] Age?

Seems that the Saturnian system is now thought to be ancient, not ephemeral as stated in this article. kwami 12:13, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Formation

This article does not mention the underlying physics behind ring formation. Why is a disk formed, and what is it aligned to?


This is one theory:

The rings are formed within the equatorial plane of the planet because the gravitational attraction is greater there, do to a bulge in the planet at its equator caused by the planet's rotation. Additionally, debris outside the ring will be robbed of its initial momentum and fall within this plane, due to collision with the material already within the plane.[1]

Source: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/faq/saturn.cfm

GodGnipael February 19, 2008


This is a second theory:

Ring simulation experiment using fine-particle plasmas Yokota, T. Plasma Science, IEEE Transactions on Volume 29, Issue 2, Apr 2001 Page(s):279 - 282 Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/27.923708

We can create a ring structure around a magnetized miniature sphere which is immersed in a fine-particle plasma and rotated around its magnetic dipole axis. Aluminum fine particles generated by a boat method acquire charges by UV light irradiation and are converted to a fine-particle plasma. When the magnetized sphere was rotated in the fine-particle plasma, a ring appeared around the equatorial plane under certain conditions. Unipolar induction can reveal some of ring creation mechanisms of the ring; that is, the rotation frequency matches a theoretical simulating condition, and the location of the ring almost fits with the peak position of potential, which is two to three times the sphere radius. This experiment reveals one of mechanisms why the outer planets such as the Saturn, have rings. It indicates the fact that the unipolar induction plays an important role for the creation of the outer planets in the early stage of the solar system formation

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=/iel5/27/19971/00923708.pdf?arnumber=923708

They're proposing that the ice is Saturn's rings was a plasma?? kwami (talk) 19:40, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Expansion

I think this article needs to be expanded. I expected a lengthy diatribe on the orbital mechanics of rings and how they remain stable. All I got was a page or two. Additionally, what about rings around moons? I found an article saying Rhea might have one: [1] Mathwhiz90601 (talk) 14:19, 7 March 2008 (UTC)