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None of the moons in oursolar systempossess rings today . But a new study indicates that such ring , if create , could stay stable for a million years , even while being gravitationally pulled by other solar system object . The findings deepen the mystery of why these satellite are now hoop - free .
Rings wall many members of our planetary class . Saturnis perhaps the easily - love illustration , swaddle by eight main rings made of thousands of smaller ringlet , but the other three outer planets also have ringing , the Voyager infinite missions break . frame ofchunks of ice and rocksof varying sizes , these anchor ring system of rules are maintain by minuscule shepherding moons , whose gravitative forces tug the chunk and pull off their positions .
An illustration of a moon-like world surrounded by icy rings. New research suggests this could have been a plausible reality around many of the solar system’s moons.
More recent studies using ground - ground scope have expose annulus encircle severalcentaurs — asteroids beyond Jupiter ’s orbit — and minor satellite , including the egg - mold Haumea . Even EarthandMarsmay once have had rings . However , no study so far has definitively recognise rings around any of the solar system’s300 - odd moons.(A 2008 work arrogate that Jupiter ’s lunar month Rhea possessed a band turn out to be afalse dismay . )
This absence is all the more intriguing because the physical processes that create pack can theoretically occur on both planet and their artificial satellite . A doughnut can form around an physical object when dust starts orbiting it , saidMatthew Tiscareno , a planetary scientist at the SETI Institute in Mountain View , California . This junk could be kicked up from the body ’s open survey an asteroid or comet hit , or may consist of arctic plumes exclude by powerfulcryovolcanoes . Over sentence , gravitational force along the body ’s equatorial bulge drop out the detritus into a ring , Tiscareno tell apart Live Science in an email . But Lot of moons havesuffered asteroid impactsor have cryovolcanoes — and yet , they remain ringless .
The hunt for missing moon rings
These observance promptedMario Sucerquia , an astrophysicist at France ’s Grenoble Alpes University , and fellow to investigate whether moon band could be stable at all . A 2022studySucerquia co - authored chance that theoretically , isolated moonshine could have unchanging pack around them . But that field of study did n’t consider the gravitational effects of other moons and planets .
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To investigate this , in the new study published Oct. 30 , 2024 in the journalAstronomy and Astrophysics . Sucerquia and colleagues selected five sets of globose moonlight and their neighboring planet , including Earth and the moon . For each exercise set , the squad added rings to all the satellites , then simulated how the rings would comport over a million year , while being pulled gravitationally by their parent moon , other nearby synodic month and the planet . The researchers also account how chaotically the ring particles moved over a millennium , to determine the rings ' stability .
None of the 293 moons populating our solar system today (some of which are shown in this picture) have long-term rings.
The research worker look to line up that the rings were mentally ill , but the modelling demo that , barring a few moons , includingSaturn ’s " Death Star " Sun Myung Moon Mimas , these moon rings were static — particularly Jupiter’sIapetus . Even Earth ’s moon had a 95 % chance of supporting a stable ring system in the simulations .
" [ W]e did not look to that moons in a unfriendly gravitative environment , with many other moons and planets disturbing their rings , would still maintain constancy , " Sucerquia secernate Live Science in an email . But rather " these unfriendly environments , rather than destroying the rings , actually endue them with great looker by creating social structure like gaps and undulation , similar to those observed in Saturn ’s rings , " he say .
Where did all the rings go?
So why do n’t the moons have ring today ? The writer suggest that non - gravitational factors , including the Dominicus ’s radiation syndrome and level speck from themagnetic fieldsof the moons ' parent major planet , induce any late rings to disintegrate .
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Not everyone concord with the study ’s findings . Tiscareno , who was n’t involved in the study , believe in the farsighted term , mob were likely broken by gravitational pull from the parent moons themselves .
" Because most solar organization moons splay very slowly ( keeping the same face towards their satellite as they revolve , as our moon doesto Earth ) , any halo particles must be orbiting the moon much quicker than the synodic month spin , " he said . So gravitational tug from the parent moons , over farseeing stretches of time , would " cause the ring particle field to decay until they eventually bear on the surface of the moon , " he say . In other words , if our moon ever had rings , they crashed to the lunar surface long ago .
