Ring system[]
A picture of the planet Saturn, with its rings clearly visible.
A ring system is some sort of disc or ring orbiting around a planet, star, dwarf planet, black hole, asteroid, moon, or other astronomical object. It must be made out of some solid material such as dust, ice, rocks, asteroids, moonlets, water, or sand. A ring system around a planet is known as a planetary ring system.
One of the most popular ring systems if not THE most popular ring system is the ring system of Saturn. Saturn is a very popular planet and orbits a star named Sun. There are also many other objects with rings in the Sun's Solar System, which are as follows and are listed in order of orbit:
- Sun (Yellow dwarf star)
- Jupiter (Gas giant planet)
- Saturn (Gas giant planet)
- Rhea/Saturn V (Moon of Saturn)
- 10199 Chariklo (Asteroid)
- Uranus (Ice giant/gas giant planet)
- Neptune (Ice giant/gas giant planet)
- Haumea (Dwarf planet)
- Quaoar (Dwarf planet)
Artist conception of J1407b's ring system
The largest planetary ring system is the rings of J1407b, also known as 1SWASP J140747.93-394542.6 b, or 1SWASP J1407b, commonly called "Super Saturn", "Lord of the Rings", or "Saturn on steroids". It is a planet in orbit around a star named V1400 Centauri, 1SWASP J140747.93-394542.6, 1SWASP J140747, Mamajek's Object, or J1407. The planet is 420 light-years away from Earth, and has a mass 20x the amount of Jupiter's mass. But the most astonishing part is the rings, with it being larger than 1 Astronomical Unit (AU), which is the distance from the Earth to the Sun, and the rings being 200x larger than Saturn's rings. This ring system is also very popular as well.
Ring systems are one the most amazing things in space. Even Earth used to have a ring system once!