- The Chicago Astronomer -
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The question of why Saturn has rings involves more than one perplexing issue. On the one hand you have a structure that should be short lived, disappearing in a few hundred thousand years. Why then does it just happen to exist at this moment unless it is being replenished in some manner. That some manner may well be ice volcanos on Saturn's many moons. The clouds of ice crystals they erupt could be the mechanism.
However, if you become wedded to this explanation, then you immediately get another. Where does the energy come from to drive the volcanos? If it's gravitational flexing as the moons whip around Saturn's gravity well, peturbing one another, then the energy that powers the volcanos should result in the loss of orbital momentum. The moons should spiral into Saturn.
The moons are still there, but why should they exist if their orbital energy is being robbed?
If the universe is a ball the size of America, then the solar system is almost as large as the smallest cell in the human body.
Post by Chicago Astronomer Joe on Dec 3, 2005 2:20:44 GMT -6
I scratch my head every time you pose these questions, Dave.
One would think that the particles surrounding the planet would degrade, attain a lower orbit and fall back onto the planet...but there seems to be a precise balance that they all have achieved throughout the eons. And the "Shepard" satellites, (see Curt, I remembered not to say Moons), do their part by imparting the necessary nudges and tugs to maintain the dance.
Nothing is free, and the energy exerted to produce, maintain or change some aspect of orbital mechanics, is utilized in some other opposite manner.
The domino questions keep on coming and someone smarter than I will figure it all out.