Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-sjtt6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-05T00:44:53.161Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

10 - Planetary Rings

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Carl D. Murray
Affiliation:
Queen Mary University of London
Stanley F. Dermott
Affiliation:
University of Florida
Get access

Summary

Hast any philosophy in thee, shepherd?

William Shakespeare, As You Like It, III, ii

Introduction

The first ring system to be observed in the solar system was discovered around Saturn by Galileo in 1610. Unsure of the nature of the phenomenon he had observed, he originally interpreted the ring ansae as two moons, one on each side of the planet. In a Latin anagram sent to fellow scientists he announced, “I have observed the most distant planet to have a triple form”. Galileo was surprised to find that the phenomenon had disappeared by 1612, only to reappear again soon afterwards. Huygens (1659) correctly attributed the varying appearance as being due to the different views of a thin disk of material surrounding Saturn. It was Maxwell (1859) who provided a mathematical proof that the rings could not be solid; they had to be composed of individual particles orbiting the planet.

The rings of Uranus were detected serendipitously in March 1977 by astronomers observing an occultation of a star by the planet. The Voyager spacecraft detected a faint ring around Jupiter (Smith et al. 1979a), and occultations of stars by Neptune led to the discovery of the ring arcs of Neptune, subsequently shown to be the optically thicker parts of a faint ring system. The flybys of the outer planets by the Voyager spacecraft and the continuing ground- and space-based observations of the ring systems have provided evidence of a wide variety of dynamical phenomena, which provide an ideal testing ground for some of the concepts covered in this book.

Type
Chapter
Information
Solar System Dynamics , pp. 474 - 525
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×