Re: Saturn's rings have own atmosphere (Forwarded)
- From: Joseph Lazio <jlazio@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 18 Sep 2005 14:09:07 -0400
>>>>> "BJ" == Bob Jenkins <bob_jenkins@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
BJ> Yeay! How thick is this atmosphere? Is it so thin it's
BJ> irrelevant to the structure of the rings, or is it largely
BJ> responsible for averaging the energy of the ring pieces so they
BJ> stay in a nice thin plane and show all those coordinated ripples?
BJ> How thick is it (in kilometers above the plane)?
I haven't looked to see how thick the atmosphere is, but I'd guess
that it would be fairly thin. Its presence should have essentially
nothing to do with the thinness of the rings. That's a function of
orbital mechanics. If you consider a bunch of particles in randomly
oriented orbits around a planet, it's fairly easy to show that any
collisions will drive them toward a single plane.
BJ> I'm surprised it's oxygen.
Remember that oxygen is the third most abundant element in the
Universe, after hydrogen and helium, so perhaps it is not surprising.
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