Why are there rings around the larger planets but none on smaller ones, like earth?

Answer 1

ok.

saturn, jupiter, uranus and neptune are all very large, therefore they have many many moons. Millions of years ago, the Gas Giants had an untold number of moons, perhaps thousands or even millions. These moons continously collided with each other as they circled the planet, and soon enough they had been reduced to small pieces of rubble.

Over the next few thousands or millions of years, the intense gravity of the Gas Giants, which is heaps more than on the earth, pulled these billions of pieces of rubble together to form a ring. The ring is not solid, however, it is just all those little pieces circling around at different distances from a planet.

theoretically,all planets could have rings, but the gravity may not be strong enough for hold all the pieces together, unlike at Jupiter where the gravity is strong enough to keep a ring in place for eternity.

Answer 2

It's all about the gravity.

All the planets ONCE had rings. They coalesced from gas and dust, after all. And if you threw enough dust and stuff out into space, you could MAKE a ring for any of them. It's just that in most cases it wouldn't last.

The reason for this is what is sometimes called a 'tidal force'. As you can imagine, this is what causes the tides on Earth. Gravity gets weaker the farther away you get, so close objects are attracted more strongly than far ones... and even the close SIDE of a single object is attracted more strongly than the far SIDE of a single object. On Earth, this means water near the Moon (or Sun) is pulled a little bit further out. High tide.

For planets with high gravities, it means that sometimes moons are ripped completely apart. If part of a moon wants to go in one direction and part wants to go in another, then you can end up with two moons. Or a million. Or a ring.

Thus high-gravity planets like Jupiter not only can rip moons to pieces but prevent the pieces from turning back into a moon. They make rings more easily and keep them once they have them. Smaller-gravity planets like Earth have rings only temporarily, if they have them at all.

Hope that helps!

Answer 3

The larger planets capture more material in their gravitational fields. Thus they have more material to build rings with, while protecting the smaller planets from constant asteroid & comet bombardment.

The captured material collides and forms the rings over millions of years. These rings are believed to be quite dynamic, gaining and losing material constantly. We are lucky to live in a time where Saturn has huge visible rings. In a few million years, they may be much reduced—or replenished.

Answer 4

Well, Isaac Newton stated that if the object was larger, it had more gravitational pull. Therefore, Jupiter and the sun have a lot of pull because they are large. The sun, obviously, has a lot of pull. It pulls all of us towards it. But our gravitational pull allows us to pull back a little and balance things out. Therefore, the rings' composition would have a little, very little, pull back from the planet it surrounded. Earth has no rings because we don't have nearly enough gravitational pull as the others.

Answer 5

Um..... I'm no astronomer but I think it's because the larger planets with rings r actually made of gasses and not solid like earth and mars etc. There is no way anyone could land on one of them.
I don't know if that's true, but that's what I was taught at school.

Answer 6

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Answer 7

After the big bang, and when the gaseous solar system was organizing, the heavier planets', located closer to the sun, heavy metals melted, making our solid planets. Way out in space where Saturn and Jupiter are, the sun is much farther away, therefore, they can't be "forged" like the inner planets, but have enough mass to be planets, albeit gaseous. Saturn and Jupiter also act as asteroid "sweepers."

Answer 8

The larger planets sweep a wider cross section in space with their gravitation fields. That would make it more probable to collect debris and moons which could collide and form the rings.

Answer 9

Because there were no debris fields for the smaller ones to attract and form rings with. The only satellite that earth managed to attract was a rather large body that we call our moon.

Answer 10

I guess the massive Gravity of the Big planets keep billions of small chunks of ice and rock in place to form rings.