Origin of Saturn's Rings May Be Remnants of A Moon

The origins of Saturn's rings are believed to be the remnants of a moon that Saturn tore apart eons ago. It's fascinating to think that scientists have figured out why only one of planet has these majestic rings around it.

Origin of Saturn's Rings

Saturn's gravity sucked in one of its orbiting satellites, which was supposed to be another moon, and destroyed it. After the moon's death, a trail marks the path of what was left of the moon's orbit. This is what's seen as the rings around Saturn. Saturn's rings are made up of mostly water crystals or ice. It is not rocky like other orbits that have sucked in debris from comets and meteors.

"While Saturn has only one truly gigantic moon today — Titan — it probably once had more, Canup said. Jupiter, after all, has four. Researchers think several Titan-size satellites formed around Saturn during the early days of the solar system but soon spiraled into the planet and died."

So what are seen as rings is actually remains of the path, which Saturn's moon took before its demise. This explains so much, but still leaves a planet like Earth wanting a set of rings of its own, but the price for Earth's own rings would be the death of our moon that would in effect kill our planet. So let Saturn keep her rings, and Earth will just look on in envy.

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