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The rings of Saturn are the most extensive and complex ring system of any planet in the Solar System. They consist of countless small particles, ranging in size from micrometers to meters, [1] that orbit around Saturn. The ring particles are made almost entirely of water ice, with a trace component of rocky material.
The rings of Saturn are made up of objects ranging in size from microscopic to moonlets hundreds of meters across, each in its own orbit around Saturn. Thus an absolute number of Saturnian moons cannot be given, because there is no consensus on a boundary between the countless small anonymous objects that form Saturn's ring system and the ...
Titan, the largest moon, comprises more than 90% of the mass in orbit around Saturn, including the rings. Saturn's second-largest moon, Rhea, may have a tenuous ring system of its own, along with a tenuous atmosphere. Many of the other moons are small: 131 are less than 50 km in diameter.
Cassini–Huygens ( / kəˈsiːni ˈhɔɪɡənz / kə-SEE-nee HOY-gənz ), commonly called Cassini, was a space-research mission by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Italian Space Agency (ASI) to send a space probe to study the planet Saturn and its system, including its rings and natural satellites. The Flagship -class robotic ...
The Jovian rings were the third ring system to be discovered in the Solar System, after those of Saturn and Uranus. The main ring was discovered in 1979 by the Voyager 1 space probe [1] and the system was more thoroughly investigated in the 1990s by the Galileo orbiter. [2]
Fainter planetary rings can form as a result of meteoroid impacts with moons orbiting around the planet or, in the case of Saturn's E-ring, the ejecta of cryovolcanic material. [5] [6] Ring systems may form around centaurs when they are tidally disrupted in a close encounter (within 0.4 to 0.8 times the Roche limit ) with a giant planet.
The magnetosphere of Saturn is the cavity created in the flow of the solar wind by the planet's internally generated magnetic field. Discovered in 1979 by the Pioneer 11 spacecraft, Saturn's magnetosphere is the second largest of any planet in the Solar System after Jupiter. The magnetopause, the boundary between Saturn's magnetosphere and the ...
NASA image of Enceladus within the E-ring in orbit around Saturn (NASA/JPL-Caltech) Saturn ’s moon Enceladus may have all the ingredients necessary to host life , according to a new study based ...