how many rings are there around planet satern?

Answer 1

Name Distance from Saturn's center (km) Width (km) Named after
D Ring 66,900 - 74,510 7,500
C Ring 74,658 - 92,000 17,500
Colombo Gap 77,800 ? (2) 100 Giuseppe "Bepi" Colombo
Titan Ringlet 77,800 ? (2) ? Titan moon of Saturn
Maxwell Gap 87,491 (2) 270 James Clerk Maxwell
B Ring 92,000 - 117,580 25,500
Cassini Division 117,580 - 122,170 4,700 Giovanni Cassini
Huygens Gap 117,680 ? (2) 285-440 Christiaan Huygens
A Ring 122,170 - 136,775 14,600
Encke Division 133,589 (2) 325 Johann Encke
Keeler Gap 136,530 (2) 35 James Keeler
R/2004 S 1(1) 137,630 (2) ?
R/2004 S 2(1) 138,900 (2) ?
F Ring 140,180 (2) 30-500
G Ring 170,000 - 175,000 5,000
E Ring 181,000 - 483,000 302,000

Note:
(1) temporary designation
(2) distance is to centre of gaps, rings and ringlets that are narrower than 1000 km




D Ring
The D Ring is the innermost ring. It is located inward of the C Ring, and is very faint. In 1980, Voyager 1 detected within this ring three ringlets designated D73, D72 and D68, with D68 being the discrete ringlet nearest to Saturn. Some 25 years later Cassini images showed that D72 had become significantly fainter and moved planetward by 200 kilometres. Present in the gap between the C ring and D73 is finescale structure with waves 30 kilometres apart.


C Ring

In this image of Saturn's rings, the C Ring is the faint ring below the two brighter onesThe C Ring is a wide but faint ring located inward of the B Ring, and was discovered in 1850 by William and George Bond when it was termed the 'Crepe Ring' because it seemed to be composed of darker material than the brighter A and B Rings.

Its thickness is estimated as 5 metres, its mass as 1.1e18 kilogram, and its optical depth varies from 0.05 to 0.12.[1]


Colombo Gap
The Colombo Gap lies in the middle of the C Ring, and contains the bright and narrow Titan Ringlet (also called the Colombo Ringlet) centred at 77,883 kilometres from Saturn's centre.


Titan Ringlet
The Titan Ringlet (also called the Colombo Ringlet) is centred at 77,883 kilometres from Saturn's centre and is within the Colombo Gap. This ringlet is eccentric; that is, it is slightly elliptical rather than circular. The Titan Ringlet is so named because it is in a resonance with Titan.[2] In this case, the time period of a ring particle's apsidal precession is equal to the time period of Titan's orbital motion, so that the outer end of this eccentric ringlet always points towards Titan.


Maxwell Gap
The Maxwell Gap lies within the C Ring.


B Ring

In this image of Saturn, the B Ring is the inner of the two wide rings, the Cassini Division is the gap between the two widest rings, and the A Ring is the outer of the two wide ringsThe B Ring is the innermost of the two largest, brightest rings. Unlike the A Ring, it is made of innumerable ringlets, some of which have eccentric orbits. There are also spoke-like features running across it, which are made of suspended dust particles.

Its thickness is estimated as 5 to 10 metres, its mass as 2.8e19 kilogram (about three-quarters of Mimas), and its optical depth varies from 0.4 to 2.5.[3]

The outer edge of the B Ring is maintained by a 2:1 resonance with the moon Mimas. Ring particles at this location orbit twice for every one orbits of Mimas. The resonance causes Mimas' pulls on these ring particles to accumulate, destabilizing their orbits and leading to a sharp cutoff in ring density.


Huygens Gap
The Huygens Gap separates the B Ring from the Cassini Division.


Cassini Division
The Cassini Division is a 4,800 km (2,980 mile) region between the A Ring and B Ring. It was discovered in 1675 by Giovanni Cassini. From Earth it appears as a thin black gap in the rings. However, during the Voyager flybys, it was discovered that the gap is full of tiny rings.


A Ring
The A Ring is the outermost of the two largest, brightest rings. Its inner boundary is the Cassini Division and its sharp outer boundary is the orbit of the small moon Atlas. The A Ring is divided in two near its outer edge by the Encke Division. A smaller, fainter division is called the Keeler Gap, and is kept clear by the moonlet Daphnis.

Its thickness is estimated as 10 to 30 metres, its mass as 6.2e18 kilogram (about the mass of Hyperion), and its optical depth varies from 0.4 to 1.0.[4]

Similarly to the B Ring, the A Ring's outer edge is maintained by a resonance, in this case the 7:6 resonance with Janus.


Encke Division

The Encke Division in closeupThe Encke Division, also historically called the Encke Gap, is a perceived gap within the A Ring. Johann Encke himself did not observe this division; it was named in honour of his ring observations.

The division is centered at a distance 133,580 kilometers from Saturn's center, and has a width of 325 kilometers.[5] It is caused by the presence of the small moon Pan, which orbits within it.

Images from the Cassini probe have shown that there are at least two thin, knotted ringlets within the gap.[6]


Keeler Gap

Image of Daphnis obtained by Cassini, showing the ripples it induces in the edges of the Keeler gap.The Keeler Gap is a 42-kilometre-wide gap in the A Ring, approximately 250 kilometres from the ring's outer edge. It is named after the astronomer James Edward Keeler. The small moon Daphnis, discovered May 1 2005, orbits within it, keeping it clear.


R/2004 S 1
R/2004 S 1, also known as S/2004 1R, is the temporary designation of a newly discovered ring that lies between the A Ring and the F Ring, in the orbit of the moon Atlas. The faint, thin ring was discovered by the Cassini probe imaging team and announced on September 9, 2004.


R/2004 S 2
R/2004 S 2 is a temporary designation for a faint ring recently discovered by the Cassini probe imaging team and announced in 2005. The ring is located at 138,900 km from Saturn's center, between the orbits of Atlas and Prometheus.


F Ring
The F Ring is one of the outer rings of Saturn. It is located outside the larger rings, just beyond about 3000 Km, the A Ring.[2] It was discovered in 1979. It is very thin, just few hundred of kilometers wide, and is held together by two shepherd moons, Prometheus and Pandora, which orbit inside and outside it.

Recent closeup images from the Cassini probe show that the F Ring consists of one core ring and a spiral strand around it [7]. They also show that Prometheus's gravitational attraction creates kinks and knots in the F Ring as the moon 'steals' material from it.


The F Ring is the thin ring on the right; its shepherd moons Prometheus and Pandora can be seen on either side of it.

Close up view of Prometheus and the F Ring

Prometheus (at left) and Pandora (at right) shepherding the F Ring



G Ring

A Ring].The G Ring is a very thin, faint ring about halfway between the F Ring and the beginning of the E Ring.


E Ring

The E-Ring is visible on the right, with the moon Enceladus embedded within it.The E Ring is the outermost ring, and is extremely wide, beginning at the orbit of Mimas and ending somewhere around the orbit of Rhea. It is a diffuse disk of icy or dusty material. Unlike the other rings, it is composed of microscopic rather than macroscopic particles. In 2006, cryovolcanism on the moon Enceladus was determined to be the source of the E Ring's material.


References

External links
The Planetary Society: Images of Saturn's Rings
Planetary Rings Node: Saturn's Ring System

See also
Édouard Roche - French astronomer who described how the breakup of a satellite could form the rings, when it comes within the Roche limit of a celestial body.
Galileo Galilei - the first person to observe Saturn's ring, in 1610
Christian Huygens - the first person to propose that there was a ring surrounding Saturn, in 1655
Giovanni Cassini - discovered the gap between the A and B rings, in 1675 - (Cassini Division)
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

Answer 2

Not sure anyone can answer for sure how many rings it has. There are numerous ones to be accounted for.

I do know that the rings span 600,000 miles across. That is nearly half the diameter of the Sun.

Answer 3

There are...

5 'rings' these are ones that have obvious gaps between them.

The real answer is thousands, seeing as each ring is made from billions of little chunks of ice.

Answer 4

too many!!! lol google it or look on an astronamy or physics site your find in googel designed for homework

Answer 5

11 that we know of