What Earth Would Look Like With Rings Like Saturn

[worth]

Saturn's rings are 1,500km thick.

If earth had rings, I'm pretty positive they could cast a shadow. Clouds cast shadows on earth and they are made up of water vapor. The rings are made of rock and icce.

[photon]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

I don't think the rings would be densely packed enough to create widespread shadows. I think the effect would be similar to those bus windows with the little black dots on them, that you don't even notice until you look closely.

If that was the case then you wouldn't be able to see them either.

Saturn's rings create clear shadows.. it would depend entirely on the composition and density of the rings.

http://zuserver2.star.ucl.ac.uk/~idh...assini_big.jpg

Originally Posted by HOOT

I'd be curious how this would effect satellite, or if they would even be possible with a ring around Earth like that.

Depends on how big it is, we could always put satellites out beyond the rings however far they are, but getting them there might be more challenging.

[photon]

Originally Posted by worth

Saturn's rings are 1,500km thick.

I don't think they're quite that thick, if I recall they're in the range of hundreds of meters, to maybe a few thousand meters, not thousands of km.

[worth]

crap, that's the width, not the thickness

[Knut]

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/ba...ings-of-earth/

Bad Astronomers take on it.,

[burn_this_city]

Originally Posted by worth

crap, that's the width, not the thickness

Actually they're 140,000 km wide.

[Rhetts_the_Best]

Well they most likely couldn't be made of ice
I believe we are to close to the sun ( saturn is much farther obviously)

So they would have to be made out of rock particles?!?

[worth]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

Actually they're 140,000 km wide.

radial width, not diameter

[DrPepper]

interesting.

[HOOT]

Originally Posted by Hesla

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/ba...ings-of-earth/

Bad Astronomers take on it.,

Well that site answered my question a bit:

Also, the rings would be located in the very worst possible place: right over the Earth’s equator. That’s the best place to put satellites — they’re easier to launch near the equator (you get a boost of 1600 kph from the Earth’s spin that way) and that’s where you want to put geosynchronous satellites for weather and communications. A lot of astronomical (and no doubt spy) satellites are in polar orbits, but again you wouldn’t want them plunging through the rings twice each orbit. Space debris is a bad enough problem now with all the junk in orbit; having billions of particles out there wouldn’t help any!

[Cheese]

Originally Posted by HOOT

Well that site answered my question a bit:

hmmm...so we wouldnt have spy satellites?
Somehow I think man...or whatever we'd be called...would have figured a way around this situation...IF we had rings.

[JBR]

Originally Posted by worth

Blow up the moon.

Theres a ######bag in Vancouver with a laser. Give him a call.