This amazing animation shows why Saturn’s rings are like a “mini solar system”

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If star-jumping aliens ever visited our solar system, Saturn is probably the planet they would remember.

The seven giant rings that surround its equator make Saturn the most distinct planet orbiting the Sun. It may not be obvious in the images of the hula-hoop planet, but the pieces of ice and rock that make up those rings surround Saturn at speeds almost 70 times faster than the speed of sound. Moreover, each ring moves at its own pace.

“In a way, the ring system is like a mini solar system,” James O’Donoghue, a planetary scientist from the Japanese space agency, JAXA, told Insider.

“Objects close to Saturn orbit faster otherwise they would fall inside, while distant objects can afford to go slower. This is the same for planets.”

In his free time, O’Donoghue makes animations about physics and the solar system. Some of his others have shown that there is no “dark side” of the Moon, the true center of the Solar System is not the Sun, and the Earth has two types of day.

When he put his skills to work to describe Saturn’s rings, O’Donoghue created an animation (below) that shows how each ring moves through its own movements in a beautiful circular dance.

In the animation, the line labeled “synchronous orbit” is synchronized with the rotation of Saturn itself, so it shows which parts of the rings you would see over time if you were at that point on the planet.

Saturn’s slowest, outermost ring spins at about 16.4 kilometers per second – slower than Saturn’s own rotation. The innermost pieces of ice and stone pull through space at about 23.2 kilometers per second.

Up close, Saturn’s rings aren’t as chaotic as their speed might seem. According to O’Donoghue, the ice grains on the neighboring tracks move only a few centimeters per minute relative to each other.

“That speed is like walking one step every 30 minutes, or similar to rush hour traffic,” he said. SAPS on Twitter. “So the collisions are not very dramatic.”

Saturn slowly swallows its rings

Besides being incredibly fast, Saturn’s rings are very long and thin. If you unfolded them – as O’Donoghue did in the picture below – all the planets would fit comfortably in their length.

605e01266746fb0018a73eb8(James O’Donoghue)

But in total, the rings have only 1 / 5,000 of the mass of our Moon.

“In other words, our moon could be used to make 5,000 Saturn ring systems,” O’Donoghue told Insider. “This highlights how extremely thin and fragile Saturn’s rings are.”

This fragility is the subject of O’Donoghue’s scientific research. Studying the upper atmosphere of Saturn, he and his colleagues discovered that the rings slowly disappear. Thousands of kilograms of annular material rain on the planet every second. At this rate, the rings should not last more than 300 million years in their current “complete” form, he said.

“Saturn’s ring system is not exactly stable, looking more like a field of temporary remnants of a moon or ancient comets that got too close and broke, rather than a permanent feature,” O’Donoghue added. “We can consider ourselves lucky to be living in a time when Saturn’s rings have such an enormous presence in the solar system.”

This article was originally published by Business Insider.

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