Planetary ring

From Childrenspedia

A planetary ring is a ring made of dust and other particles orbiting around a planet in a flat-disc shaped region. The gas giants Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are the only planets known to have rings, with Saturn having the most spectacular system of rings.

The rings sometimes have "shepherd satellites". These moons orbit either in between ring gaps or the outside edge of a ring. The moons' gravity maintain the rings current shape with a well defined edge. Any material that drifts closer to a moon's orbit, it can either move back into the body of the ring, deflect out into space, or is added onto the moon's surface.

The rings can be made of silica or water ice. It is not known how any of the rings were formed.

This short article can be made longer. You can help Childrenspedia by adding to it.

License and Copyright Statement: All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License (see Copyrights for details).