Saturn's rings may double up as moon factory

[Still Waters]

Many of the moons in the solar system could have been spawned from giant rings around planets. According to a new model, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and even the Earth may have once had ring systems that gave rise to satellites.

We used to think that moons form around planets in the same way as planets form around stars: coalescing from a gaseous disc that surrounded the planet as it formed. That model still applies to some moons, like those of Jupiter.

But Saturn's moons follow a peculiar pattern. Their orbits bunch near the edge of the rings, and the moons get more spread out and more massive as they get further away.

http://www.newscient...on-factory.html

[freetoroam]

Does this mean we could have been one of Saturns moons? are we the "one" which got away so :life: could flourish?

[Abramelin]

Does this mean we could have been one of Saturns moons? are we the "one" which got away so :life: could flourish?

There is a whole website dedicated to that idea:

http://saturniancosmology.org/lost.php

[ReaperS_ParadoX]

WOW what will they discover tomorrow

[Bonecrusher]

Does this mean we could have been one of Saturns moons? are we the "one" which got away so :life: could flourish?

Have you been on the moondust again?

There was quite a bit of furious activity at the time of the Big Bang.

Suppose you compare it to a celestial game of pool or snooker.

That would be one hell of a trick shot to come from Saturn rings to where we are now.

Besides how can you explain Earth having a ring if it's a rogue moon of Saturn.

Providing we had a ring to start off to form the Moon.

[keithisco]

Received wisdom is that the Moon was created as the result of an impact on the earth of a celestial sized body. maybe the Moon was ejected from the Kuiper belt , bumped into the earth and stayed around?

As for the theory that Rings lead to moon creation: I find that a little far fetched, what would have been the mechanism for accreting the Ring debris into a single body? it would have required a sizeable Mass in the ring to clear its orbit and to add to its mass to become a Moon.

Looked at in a different way: are the rings actually the remnants of small moons that were ripped apart by the tidal pull of the planet that they orbitted?

[Bonecrusher]

What gets me is the fact that just because Saturn's moons have an unique relationship with their parent planet it isn't an astronomical equation.

The fact that it even has rings is very telling and it could be them that are actually influencing the actions of the moons.

That's correct about the gravity ripping a moon apart and it's the rings themselves that are stopping any others getting ripped apart.

There's some really close ones that flitter about through the rings.

Don't forget that Jupiter,Neptune and Uranus have faint ring systems too and by that I mean really faint.

That's why none of them suffer from the Saturn effect because the rings are so slight their influence is mimimal.

Until we actually go back in time and witness the Big Bang we are only guessing at the sequence of impacts.

Edited December 4, 2012 by Walnut Whip