Weekly Psalm 19: Saturn’s Rings and Titan

Posted by

7

Here is your weekly reminder of Psalm 19 — Saturn’s Rings and Titan.

saturn-fly-ring-1
At least I think it’s Titan. It’s one of Saturn’s moons, anyway. This image was taken by the Cassini spacecraft as it orbited Saturn. The spacecraft is named after the 17th century Italian astronomer, Giovanni Cassini, who studied Saturn extensively.

Here you can see the outer rings of Saturn, including the Cassini Division (the large division between the rings) and the Encke Gap (the smaller gap between the outermost rings). The rings are made of icy and rocky particles that range in size from a thousandth of a millimeter (about the size of smoke particles) up to a meter. It is not known for certain how the rings were formed. One hypothesis is that a moon of Saturn was either ripped apart by Saturn’s gravity or smashed by an asteroid, and the debris formed the rings; another is that the rings are made of leftover material from the formation of the solar system.

Image of Saturn and Titan, credit: Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA.

7 thoughts on “Weekly Psalm 19: Saturn’s Rings and Titan”

  1. Hi Sarah. This is a beautiful image of Titan and Saturn’s rings. What do scientists think will happen to the ring material over time? Will it eventually be pulled into the surface of Saturn or instead form one or several small moons?

  2. I’m not versed on the physics of the rings, but from what little I’ve read, it’s difficult to predict what will happen to the rings in the long term, mostly because we don’t understand why they exist in the first place. Meteorite bombardment, resonances with Saturn’s moons, and viscous spreading seem to be the main avenues for evolution of the rings, and it’s possible that they could cause the rings to eventually fall into Saturn.

  3. God bless you Sarah, Im from Iquique, Chile (sorry for my english :p ) and I read about you in protestantedigital.com. Im so glad to know about you and your ministry.

    Its my prayer that the Lord continues using you to tell the people Who is the Supreme Creator.

    Blessings

    Pancho

Comments are closed.