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why aren't saturns rings sucked into tthe planet by its gravitational pull?

Originally posted by: IcebergSlim
I dont get it.

Good thing this wasn't a thread about Uranus. :shocked:
- Anandtech Moderator SagaLore
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At least Uranus is a gas giant like Saturn.
 
The rings are made up of dust and small rocks. They aren't sucked in for the same reason the earth isn't sucked into the sun.
 
Originally posted by: IcebergSlim
so basically the rings are outside of its gravitational pull?
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No, or else they'd just float off into space 😛 They're in orbit. They're just far enougn in the gravitational field to not get sucked in to Saturn's core, but not far enough out to fly off into space.
 
Because it's in orbit like how the moon isn't sucked into the Earth?


When something's in orbit, it's actually constantly falling down but never reaches the ground. It is too technical for the average ATOTer to comprehend or care. Science save us
 
Originally posted by: IcebergSlim
Originally posted by: Babbles
Thier orbit is falling towrds the planet; give it enough years and they will be gone.
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:thumbsup: good
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Yes, actually we're lucky to see them at all. I read somewhere that the rings are a fairly recent phenomenon (on planetary time scales) and aren't going to last for too long (again, on that time scale.)
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roche_limit

Read up on that. If a chunk of rock ends up within the limit, it is torn apart by the tidal forces of the larger celestial body. It has a decaying orbit and will end up on the celestial body at some later point in time.

The moon as we know it was probably a hunk of rock colliding with the Earth in the early years of the solar system. After the collision, the moon ended up pretty far away from Earth and is actually moving away from us every year. After the collision, the Earth had some rings itself for a short while. 🙂

EDIT: Big Picture story from Boston.com. It's about the Cassini spacecraft. AWESOME natural colour pictures! http://www.boston.com/bigpictu...continued_mission.html
 
Originally posted by: speg
Why isn't the moon crashing into Earth? Why isn't Earth falling towards the sun?
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-_-;

The moon technically is falling towards the earth due to gravity. It's in constant freefall but it's direction is changing every second. It's has a force acting downwards towards the Earth. BUT, it also has a velocity tangential to the acceleration downwards, so it stays in an orbit. I think. 😵.

EDIT: It has that tangential velocity because of the initial velocity it had when it collided with the Earth.
 
Not to threadjack, but me and my SO discuss this sometimes:
If all other planets and the sun, would the moon crash into the earth?
I dont know much about it but I say that ALL the other planets create a delicate balance of pull on each other. Kind of like magnets. Therefore, if they didnt exist, the earth would pull the moon into itself.

Any input?
 
Originally posted by: WannaFly
Not to threadjack, but me and my SO discuss this sometimes:
If all other planets and the sun, would the moon crash into the earth?
I dont know much about it but I say that ALL the other planets create a delicate balance of pull on each other. Kind of like magnets. Therefore, if they didnt exist, the earth would pull the moon into itself.

Any input?
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I assume the word "disappeared" belongs in that second sentence. And the answer is simple: definitely no. The other plants are so far away compared to the earth / moon and so small compared to the sun that for all practical purposes, they can be said to have no gravitational effect on us at all.
 
Originally posted by: WannaFly
Not to threadjack, but me and my SO discuss this sometimes:
If all other planets and the sun, would the moon crash into the earth?
I dont know much about it but I say that ALL the other planets create a delicate balance of pull on each other. Kind of like magnets. Therefore, if they didnt exist, the earth would pull the moon into itself.

Any input?
Click to expand...

I just posted about that. Having more celestial bodies will probably just create more orbits. The moon revolves around the earth in about a month, but the moon also revolves around the sun in a year and it also revolves around the super massive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way galaxy (in however many years).

And no, if you had two bodies only, they can still form orbits around each other. They won't just crash into each other. Binary stars do this I think.
 
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