Slashdot Mirror
Saturn's Rings Formed From Large Moon Destruction
Matt_dk writes "The formation of Saturn's rings has been one of the classical if not eternal questions in astronomy. But one researcher has provided a provocative new theory to answer that question. Robin Canup from the Southwest Research Institute has uncovered evidence that the rings came from a large, Titan-sized moon that was destroyed as it spiraled into a young Saturn."
sorry.
i could live a little longer in this prison
This is a really interesting model and it has a nice ring to it. (And Robin is one of the best researchers I know in this area, so that adds confidence, too.) But can we not use the definite statements in the headlines? This is a model. A good model, to be sure, but just one. I've definitely seen work even recently that makes a comet origin seem plausible, so in the very least, there's a competing model that has to be answered.
Aren't all rings of this nature formed form orbiting debris - debris caused by collisions? The thought that Jupiter will have rings once the conflicting orbits of it's moons finally cause them to collide is not new.. it's expected and assumed that it will happen..
I don't think this is new "science".. seems obvious.
----------------------------
Esobofh - Currently drinking fresh mango juice.
It's only a model
They said the same thing about Camelot !
The theory has been floated but this is the first time that I am aware that someone actually worked out the mechanics of it. It's not 'proof' but it's a lot better than just conjecture.
Disclaimer: I am not an astrophysicist or a planetary expert. It's possible that someone did work out the same thing in detail. If so I just haven't seen it.
It has a nice "ring" to it? Seriously? Be ashamed.
Yes, and t'was a silly place, as you'll recall. Best not to go there.
I can honestly say that I didn't even spot that pun when I wrote that. When you live with ring-puns every day, you stop noticing accidental ones, I guess.
I read a while ago that the same happened with the Earth's moon, or the Moon. The same side of the moon is always facing the Earth, because it bounced off of the Earth. It's also moving away from the Earth, for the same reason. The theory was the object that crashed into the Earth was about the size of Mars; that object is now the Moon.
God liked it, so he put a ring on it.
In 2001, ACC pointed out the odd coincidence between the ring of Saturn being only 4 million years old, and the time when the Monolith appeared on Earth. Hmmmmmm.
BTW - The book has the large monolith at Saturn, not Jupiter. Kubrick was worried about the FX it would take to portray the rings on film, so they changed it to Jupiter.
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
Is this really a new theory? Or is this a new interpretation of an existing theory.
I recently read 2001, finally, and I'm fairly certain Arthur C. Clarke mentions Saturn's rings having been formed due to the destruction of a moon. He's not a scientist, but I'm fairly certain he got the idea from scientific circles.
You guys obviously haven't been watching your documentaries. I remember well that episode from Captain Future in the 70's where they state that Saturn's rings are the result of the destruction of the Katein. This is why Captain Future travels back in time to have the people of the Katein build one of their moons into a spaceship to travel to their old holy planet.
Sheesh. Kids these days.
Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk?
pics or it didn't happen...
I will believe this when I see the CGI video of a moon exploding as it spirals into Saturn.
The theory has been floated but this is the first time that I am aware that someone actually worked out the mechanics of it. It's not 'proof' but it's a lot better than just conjecture.
Disclaimer: I am not an astrophysicist or a planetary expert. It's possible that someone did work out the same thing in detail. If so I just haven't seen it.
Actually this is not the first time. This similar theory had been foisted in the 70s and done so without really pretty CGI-created computer models to boot (although it was done with animations). I remember it being discussed on Nova or some similar show, as I recall watching it in Junior High School during one of those great moments were I wasn't staring at a chalkboard and listening to my rather dull science teacher droning me to sleep.
Pity that I don't remember the exact show, 'else I'd be seeing if the video was put up online.
"The truth points to itself." - Kosh, Babylon5
... one of Mars' moons? I remember reading somewhere that one of them will either crash into Mars or be disintegrated into a ring in a few million years because it's orbit is shrinking slowly as time goes on.
Mada mada dane.
"The same side of the moon is always facing the Earth, because it bounced off of the Earth."
Actually nearly all significant moons have one side always facing the bodies they orbit. It's not because of collision, it's because of tidal locking.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_locking
And this is news? This must have happened millions of years ago!
OK, who shot first: Han Solo or the Death Star?
Wait, what was the question again? Did a slashdot article suddenly get off topic? How unusual.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
Pics of your mom being impregnated or you didn't happen.
Many people have pics of that. He's for real.
"His name was James Damore."
I guess you hear enough of them that they just leave a ringing in your ears....
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
That's no Moon it is the debris of an space station from long ago.
This is a really interesting model and it has a nice ring to it. (And Robin is one of the best researchers I know in this area, so that adds confidence, too.) But can we not use the definite statements in the headlines? This is a model. A good model, to be sure, but just one. I've definitely seen work even recently that makes a comet origin seem plausible, so in the very least, there's a competing model that has to be answered.
ALL HEADLINES ARE TRUE.
-Fantasyland, USA: Today, a top researcher said some headlines might be true, under certain circumstances. This is an amazing find, as previously it was believed that all headlines were complete fabrications, as covered in our story yesterday entitled "ALL HEADLINES FALSE".
Worldwide Military budgets: $2100 billion. Worldwide Space Exploration budgets: $38 billion. Really, world? Really?
it would be cooler to have a ring than a moon, but that would probably screw up the tides.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
John Varley covered how the rings were created in his Gaean series of books (Titan, Wizard, Demon). The constructs would collapse moons to gather the materials they needed to form their habitats.
Invalid Checksum. Retrying.
But was the man manly?
Titan is such an interesting moon. Too bad its possible twin is lost. It may have been even more interesting than Titan because being closer to Saturn means that it would likely have had many tidal-friction-induced volcanoes that spew water, methane, etc. Think of Io with a real atmosphere and more water. (Well, maybe Io once did have more water. It may have all been boiled away by tidal volcanoes.)
Table-ized A.I.
Well, I read all the comments so far and nobody has discussed the actual new parts of the model. The novelty is that the destroyed moon is assumed to be differentiated (The heavy metal and rock fall to the core and the light ices stay on the surface.) and Saturn was in its very early stages, when it was hot and its atmosphere greatly distended. This means that as the moon spirals in toward Saturn, its icy mantle gets stripped off by tidal forces first. That makes a vast disk of icy material from which the inner icy moons and the ring system are formed. Since the denser rocky material at the core of the moon is less affected by tidal forces, it impacts the extended atmosphere of Saturn and gets swallowed up before it has a chance to contribute to the disk. This explains the composition of the rings and moons better than previous models.
The point is not that it was a moon. There was no collision. Takeaway point if tl;dr:
The rings were formed by tidal disruption of a moon with an icy mantle and a rocky core.
I know I'm not in the planetary science loop, but I always thought that was the main theory of Saturn's rings.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
That or comet breakup (or moon breakup due to comet impact... etc). I don't know that either theory is terribly strongly supported, but the origin and age of the rings is all an wide open question, but one that I've never felt (as a ring scientist) was particularly worrisome.
I went looking for Saturns Moon, and all I could find was Uranus.
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
If he has had facts, fine. But if not... Well, personally I have assumed for years that the rings came from a broken moon or similar object. The main reason for that is that nothing else makes any sense.
So yah ;)