Rings system
The visible rings stretch to a distance of 136,200 km (84,650 mi) from Saturn's centre, but in many regions they may be only 5 m (16.4 ft) thick. They are thought to consist of aggregates of rock, frozen gases, and water ice ranging in size from less than 0.0005 cm (0.0002 in) in diameter to about 10 m (33 ft) in diameter—from dust to boulder size. An instrument aboard Voyager 2 counted more than 100,000 thin rings in the Saturnian system.
The apparent separation between the A and B rings
is called Cassini's division, after its discoverer, the French astronomer
Giovanni Cassini. Voyager's television cameras imaged five new faint rings
within Cassini's division. The wide B and C rings appear to consist of hundreds
of thin rings, some slightly elliptical, that exhibit rippling density
variations. The gravitational interaction between rings and satellites, which
causes these density waves, is still not completely unde
rstood.
The B ring appears bright when viewed from the side illuminated by the Sun, but
dark on the other side because it is dense enough to block most of the sunlight.
Voyager images have also revealed radial, rotating spokelike patterns in the B
ring.
Introduction Structure & Composition Important numbers Satellites & Moons
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