Re: Saturn's Rings evidence today a phenomenon that Einstein's General Relativity can't explain

On Mar 11, 11:16 pm, "Paul B. Andersen" <paul.b.ander...@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Albertito wrote:
Saturn's Rings Edge On (2 every 29.5 years, occur at night)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2008/0708-are_saturns_rings_disapp...

"Astronomers say that Saturn's rings will disappear
from view on Earth on September 4, 2009. The gases,
ice, and rocky material that make up the rings will
remain in place, but be invisible from the vantage
point of Earth, as they do about every fifteen years.
The rings are so thin that stargazers will be unable
to see them through small telescopes..."

This amazing astronomical event coincides with the Celebration of
the 4th Centenary of Galilei "perspicillum" 2009
http://www.communicatingastronomy.org/iya_eso/presentation/benacchio.ppt

"In 1609, Galileo was, along with Englishman Thomas Harriot
and others, among the first to use a refracting telescope
as an instrument to observe stars, planets or moons. ..."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei#Technology

My questions are:
Why are Saturn's rings located in exactly the equatorial orbital
plane of Saturn? I mean, can we imagine Saturn's rings orbiting
in a different plane? and if so, would they be stable? Why do matter
orbiting around Saturn tend to be located in its equatorial plane?
Can GR explain that weird gravitational tendency?

Thanks

The explanation is found in Saturn's flattened shape.
If we exaggerate a little, and think of Saturn as a disc, a satellite
with orbital plane at an angle to the disc would experience
a gravitational force pointing a bit off the orbit's centre
(towards the disc), which would mean that the centripetal force
has an angle to the orbital plane.
The orbit is not stable, and in the long run it would align
with the disc.
(The details are a bit more complicated, the off centre
force will make the orbit precess, and if there were no
'friction' of any kind, it would keep doing so forever.
But there are a lot of satellites in the rings, they will
interact, and collide if their orbital planes were different,
and this will be a kind of 'friction'.)

There is no need to invoke GR, the difference between GR and NM
is too small to be significant to this problem.

The flatness of the Earth is important for the stability of
satellites orbiting the Earth as well. Orbits in the equatorial
plane are more stable than orbits at an angle.
For geostationary satellites even equator's deviation from
a circle (variation in Earth's density, water - land - mountains)
has an effect, there are two points above equator that are more
stable than other positions.

--
Paul

http://home.c2i.net/pb_andersen/

Chicken or the egg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_or_the_egg

Herein,
Chicken = Saturn's flattened shape.
Egg = Gravito-magnetism (aka Mach's principle)

"Chickens hatch from eggs, but eggs are
laid by chickens, making it difficult to
say which originally gave rise to the other..."

Any idea about what initial conditions there were?
:-)
.

Quantcast