There have been a few dumbed down articles in the media about Saturn's rings recently.
I'm still completely baffled by it all.
I would have thought the mutual gravitational pull of each individual lump of rock or ice would have clumped them all together by now.
And this business of the moons passing close by helping to keep the rings in place. How does that work ?
Surely the much larger mass of a moon will simply attract any small debris in it's vicinity so eventually they would suck up all the rings, bit by bit.

Is there a proper explanation of it all somewhere on the web ?

Now THAT is a question!

did you watch Wonders of the Solar System last Sunday? Quite a bit about it on there.

No, I missed that, I read a couple of Cosm articles in The Metro.
It's the idea that the rings are there because of the moons that I don't get.
I can't see how they are there despite the moons.

all you need to know.

God made them do it.

Try this for some basic background

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rings_of_Saturn

Then watch the Wonders of the Solar System on bbc i player, it is a really intresting documntary, i'm hooked on the series.

Cheers

Rusty

The Metro?

Thanks lowey. It'll take a couple of hours to download that with my internet connection.
I'm not very hopeful that it will explain everything though.
I can remember when we had proper science programmes with Raymond Baxter and Michael Burke. Everything seems to be aimed at 10 year olds these days.
I'll watch it anyway and see if I've still got any questions afterwards.

The Metro is a free paper handed out on public transport.

The Metro is written by ten year olds isn't it?

Wonders of The Solar System is great. I think you'll have a lot of your ring related questions answered.

And Wonders of the Solar System is presented by a ten year old…

😉

I marvelled at what the grinning goon Dr Cox was telling me last Sunday. Definitely worth a watch.

(and I don't mean Scrubs)

That wikipedia article mentions stuff like orbital resonance and the planets "shepherding" the rings without going in to the mechanics of how that actually works.
Oh well, I've got about 1/4 of that BBC programme downloaded so far…

I'm pretty sure he's a Professor, Mr B.

I quite like Brian Cox. His obvious enthusiasm for his field is infectious. Plus he made some good music with D-Ream :p

That wikipedia article mentions stuff like orbital resonance and the planets "shepherding" the rings without going in to the mechanics of how that actually works.

The TV programme might be lacking in depth for you then!

Most TV programmes are. That's why I haven't got one.

coincidentally I watched the saturn rings Wonders fo The Univers on iPlayer download on the train into work this morning.

The stuff on orbital resonance was the most interesting bit. Very watchable programme. I have the next one to watch on the way home tonight.

Theirs a rng rownd yuranus 2 totaly freeked me owt when I luked

yuranus

dammit, Mark is proving his fakeness 🙁

prof cox was just a stand in keyboard oplayer for d-ream on toptp

wonders of the solar system is very good

its first episode got something like 2million viewers which is excellent for a science programme

sadly dancing on ice at the same time got about 7m which i think you will all agree is a tragic indictment of our country