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The rings of Saturn are the most extensive and complex ring system of any planet in the Solar System. They consist of countless small particles, ranging in size from micrometers to meters, [ 1] that orbit around Saturn. The ring particles are made almost entirely of water ice, with a trace component of rocky material.
A ring system is a disc or torus orbiting an astronomical object that is composed of solid material such as gas, dust, meteoroids, planetoids or moonlets and stellar objects. Ring systems are best known as planetary rings, common components of satellite systems around giant planets such as of Saturn, or circumplanetary disks.
The Phoebe ring is one of the rings of Saturn. This ring is tilted 27 degrees from Saturn's equatorial plane (and the other rings). It extends from at least 128 to 207 [20] times the radius of Saturn; Phoebe orbits the planet at an average distance of 215 Saturn radii. The ring is about 40 times as thick as the diameter of the planet. [21]
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured its first near-infrared observation of Saturn, highlighting details in the planet’s atmosphere and rings. Saturn’s rings shine in new Webb ...
Enceladus is the sixth-largest moon of Saturn and the 19th-largest in the Solar System. It is about 500 kilometers (310 miles) in diameter, [ 5 ] about a tenth of that of Saturn 's largest moon, Titan. It is mostly covered by fresh, clean ice, making it one of the most reflective bodies of the Solar System.
A global storm girdles the planet in 2011. The storm passes around the planet, such that the storm's head (bright area) passes its tail. Saturn's atmosphere exhibits a banded pattern similar to Jupiter's, but Saturn's bands are much fainter and are much wider near the equator. The nomenclature used to describe these bands is the same as on Jupiter.
A schema of Jupiter's ring system showing the four main components. For simplicity, Metis and Adrastea are depicted as sharing their orbit. (In reality, Metis is very slightly closer to Jupiter.) The planet Jupiter has a system of faint planetary rings. The Jovian rings were the third ring system to be discovered in the Solar System, after ...
Saturn's satellite system is very lopsided: one moon, Titan, comprises more than 96% of the mass in orbit around the planet. The six other planemo ( ellipsoidal ) moons constitute roughly 4% of the mass, and the remaining small moons, together with the rings, comprise only 0.04%.