Nobody knows for sure how planets get their rings. In the 19th century, the French mathematician Edouard Roche suggested that if any large object, such as a moon or comet, got too close to a planet, it could be torn apart by the planet’s tidal force. The object would be pulled one way by its orbit and another by the planet’s gravity. Once it reached the “Roche limit”, it would break apart into tiny fragments.
One theory that astronomers have come up with is that the rings are actually bits and pieces of an old moon, or moons that used to orbit Saturn. In this theory, the old moon was ripped apart somehow. Saturn’s moons mostly have icy outer coats and layers. If the ice layers were stripped away, and the rest of the moon crashed in Saturn, rings could be able to form. It could have been ripped apart by Saturn’s gravity and gravity from other moons. The pushing and pulling may have caused dust and pieces of the old moon to scatter and orbit around the planet, creating a ring.
Another theory says that the rings may have been formed as debris, dust, comets, and asteroids passed near Saturn. As these materials passed, Saturn’s immense gravity may have pulled them towards it and trapped them in an orbit around the planet. Similar to the moon theory, the trapped comets and asteroids may have been broken apart by forces of gravity exerted by Saturn and other debris. The debris also, most likely, runs into each other and breaks into even smaller pieces. Over time, the fragments of rock and debris flattened and shaped into the rings we see now.
Some astronomers think that the much of the material that composes the rings actually came from the time when Saturn first formed. As Saturn formed, not all the surrounding dust, material, or gas went into Saturn’s final form. Therefore, Saturn may not have used the material to create its body, but its gravity kept the leftover and unused dust and debris in its orbit, creating its rings.
In recent studies, a group of mathematicians believe that the rings were formed by a chain of collisions created between particles moving. These mathematicians think that large particles ran into each other at slow rates, and these crashing particles caused smaller particles to run into each other at much higher speeds. The debris in Saturn’s rings could have been smaller remnants of larger events in Saturn’s past, which explains why the debris in Saturn’s rings varies in size.
Picture Credit : Google
