Why is Saturn the only planet with rings?

Answer 1

It is not. Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune also have rings, although they are not as large as Saturn's.

Answer 2

Saturn has lovely rings, perhaps thousands of them, and they may be examined in detail on the NASA Cassini web site. Some of the rings are not uniform. They are distorted by little moonlets orbitting among them.

As to planetary jewelry, I think that Jupiter has the loveliest necklace.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/main/index.html

There are many pictures of the many moons of Saturn as well. Titan has lots of stuff like petroleum; it lies around on the surface in lakes. We eventually might use it instead of Middle Eastern oil.

Rings are left over from the primeval material from which the planets were formed. The other fat girls planets also have rings, but I hear that at this time, only Saturn is actually engaged ... by Cassini..

Mars has some visitors courting, but no rings or proposals yet.

Answer 3

My my my, such interestsing questions this evening.

As others have pointed out, all the gas giants have rings.

End of discussion. If you believe that, then you don't know me.

I much prefer the question, Why do the gas giants have rings?

Now we have something I can talk about.

In order to do that we have to look at Édouard Roche who first looked at what tidal forces would do to a satellite orbiting a large primary.

He showed that tidal forces would tear apart a satellite and cause it to form a ring if it were to close to the primary.

I am not going to attempt to show the calculations he used to determine how close, there are way to many variables (the tensile strength of the satellite for one).

I am just going to give you an approximate figure 2.5 times the radius of the primary. All of Saturn’s rings lie within this limit (well, except for it’s E-ring, but that is another story) (called Roche’s Limit), and almost all of the satellites in the solar system lie outside this limit.

Almost all? How can you set a limit and then use the word almost?

It is because of the differences in the tensile strength of the satellites and also because of the density of the primary. As I said earlier, there are a lot of variables to consider.

If you want more information and a glimpse at the formulas used go to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roche_limit

Answer 4

The big four do have rings: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. They have the gravity to hold the material together for stable rings. Apparently, all our planets, including Earth, had rings at one time, but they were unstable do to the gravity and lack of strong enough tidal forces. Check out the source for interesting reading. Happy Holidays!

Answer 5

It is not. Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune also have rings. These planets' rings are much thinner than Saturn's rings.

Answer 6

All four of the gas giants ( Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune ) have rings.

Answer 7

Its not, almost all the outer belt planets have rings, just not as noticable as saturns. uranus has rings, neptune has rings, etc...

Answer 8

It isn't. It is just the one with the biggest and best set of rings. Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune have rings too, but they are so small and dim that they cannot easily be seen from Earth.

Answer 9

It isn't the only planet with rings. All the gas planets have rings. That must be because they are composed of a lot of gases in they're atmosphere.

Answer 10

Why earth has a moon....the same reason it has ring