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Saturn and its rings are best seen when the planet is at, or near, opposition, the configuration of a planet when it is at an elongation of 180°, and thus appears opposite the Sun in the sky. A Saturnian opposition occurs every year—approximately every 378 days—and results in the planet appearing at its brightest.
The second theory is that the rings were never part of a moon, but are instead left over from the original nebular material from which Saturn formed. [citation needed] A 2007 artist impression of the aggregates of icy particles that form the 'solid' portions of Saturn's rings. These elongated clumps are continually forming and dispersing.
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. [ 6 ] [ 7 ] 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.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured its first near-infrared observation of Saturn, highlighting details in the planet’s atmosphere and rings.
With a mean diameter of 396.4 kilometres or 246.3 miles, Mimas is the smallest astronomical body known to be roughly rounded in shape due to its own gravity. Mimas's low density, 1.15 g/cm 3 , indicates that it is composed mostly of water ice with only a small amount of rock, and study of Mimas's motion suggests that it may have a liquid ocean ...
NASA's Cassini spacecraft sent back images looking over the shoulder of Saturn's rings. See more on Saturn's rings: No telescope on this planet would ever have been able to see this.
Artist's conception of the giant impact thought to have formed the Moon. Jupiter and Saturn have several large moons, such as Io, Europa, Ganymede and Titan, which may have originated from discs around each giant planet in much the same way that the planets formed from the disc around the Sun. [88] [89] [90] This origin is indicated by the ...
Well, every 13-15 years, Saturn, the second largest planet in the solar system behind Jupiter, is angled in away in which the edge of its thin rings are oriented toward Earth – effectively ...