If the earth had rings like Saturn

[silylene]

This is a really beautiful video, give it a moment, it grows on you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UT2sQ7KIQ-E

 

[origin]

This is a really beautiful video, give it a moment, it grows on you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UT2sQ7KIQ-E

Agreed, that was really pretty cool.

 

[Fomalhautian]

Thanks for sharing. Cool video, even cooler concept.

 

[ZenGalacticore]

Yes, thank you for that Silylene. I read somewhere that they speculate that the Earth did have a thin ring shortly after its formation, but because it was within the Roche limit, it didn't last long and the Earth scooped up the particles constituting the ring.

Perhaps in the distant future, Earth will have at least a thin ring again. It will be built by us as habitat. Although it could be deemed eyesore pollution by many. But if it was engineered a certain way, where the generated lights in the habitat could be blocked from reaching Earth, it could be a beautiful man-made sight, like an aesthetically pleasing bridge.

 

[MeteorWayne]

It is suggested that the earth had a ring system for a few years after the impact that created the moon.

It would have been a great time to look, excepting that fact that all life on earth was incinerated in the impact event

And humans were about 4 billion years away.....

 

[Shpaget]

well, it would be pain in the butt for satellites.

 

[CalliArcale]

well, it would be pain in the butt for satellites.

Which *are* our ring system today.

I tried to find a graphic depicting the Earth's geostationary satellite ring, but failed. I did, however, find this unrelated but extremely cool image of the Earth's diamond ring. Kaguya watched the Earth eclipse the Sun, and caught the diamond ring effect which we more commonly associated with solar eclipses viewed from Earth. Earth's diamond ring

 

[Shpaget]

Which *are* our ring system today.

Sure they are... weak compared to Saturn's, but we can call it more "perfect" and with all the tv and radio channels they're broadcasting, some might even say they're even more interesting.

Anyway, I believe I found what you tried:
http://www.jimsaerials.co.uk/satellite/ ... tes_2s.jpg
http://ottawa-rasc.ca/articles/earl_mik ... o_Belt.jpg

 

[CalliArcale]

WOOT! Thank you, Shpaget!

 

[bdewoody]

If we aren't careful we will have a halo around the earth made up of parts from all satellites colliding.

 

[Fallingstar1971]

I wonder if the halo would declassify Earth as a planet since it would be debri, and Earth would not have cleared it yet.....LOL


Star

 

[MeteorWayne]

Fallingstar,

That shows a naive lack of understanding of the IAU definition of a planet.

 

[crazyeddie]

Beautiful video! It reminded my of the opening scenes of the 1953 George Pal movie War of the Worlds, where they used Chesley Bonestell paintings to depict each of the planets in the solar system. The one of Saturn was from the perspective of someone on it's "surface" looking up at the rings through drifting clouds......Chesley was spot-on!