Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Where do Saturn's rings come from?

http://www.bestesoft.com/imgbest/3/0/saturn-400x300.jpg
Staturn's rings are fascinating, but where do they come from? A new theory, published in the journal Nature, presents evidence that the rings might be the remnants of a former moon of Saturn. Today, Saturn has only one large satellite, Titan, whereas Jupiter has four large satellites (Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto) and over 60 smaller ones; Saturn might have had additional large satellites but were lost as they spiralled into Saturn.

See the Nature article here:Origin of Saturn/'s rings and inner moons by mass removal from a lost Titan-sized satellite : Nature : Nature Publishing Group

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