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The diversity of the planets is very wide and, simply in our Solar System, we have a great variety of typologies. Some of the most interesting planets, at least from an aesthetic point of view, are planets with rings, since they are very colorful and the imagination runs free when observing them. In fact, in the Solar System, we have one of the most striking ringed planets of all, which is Saturn. However, although it may attract attention, it is by no means the only one of the planets in our system that has these formations around it.
If you want to know what are the ringed planets in the solar system, as well as some of its most interesting curiosities, keep reading Green Ecologist and we will tell you about it.
What are the ringed planets of the Solar System
Although the rings of Saturn are the best known of all, in reality, all the gaseous planets of the Solar System have a ring system. Thus, there are four planets in our system that have rings: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
- Jupiter: It has a very faint ring system, which makes it impossible to observe with the naked eye or even with conventional telescopes. Thus, it was not until 1979 that the Voyager 1 space probe discovered them.
- Saturn: It is the most attractive ringed planet in our Solar System, as they are made up of a very large and complex ring system, which even has different areas and interior systems. They are made up mostly of dust and ice particles that orbit the planet.
- Uranus: This planet also has a ring system. It is a less attractive system than that of Saturn, but more than that of Jupiter. It is made up of a total of 13 well-defined rings. It has particles ranging from microscopic to rocks with lengths of one meter in size.
- Neptune: The last of the planets in the Solar System to have a ring system is Neptune. This ring system looks more like Jupiter's, very faint and difficult to identify without the help of very special equipment and space telescopes. It is composed mainly of silicates, ice and some organic compounds, a consequence of the action of the planet's own magnetosphere.
Composition of planets with rings in the Solar System
The planets of the Solar System can be divided into two large groups: the rocky planets and the gaseous ones. The composition of one and the other is very varied. However, this great division allows them to be differentiated according to size and the main state of their dough.
On the one hand, we would find the rocky planets, composed mainly of a body rock solid that they would be surrounded by a gaseous atmosphere. They are also the smallest planets and those that orbit closest to the Sun. They would be Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars.
On the other hand, we would find those named as gas giant planets (which are also the ones that have their own ring system). These planets would be located in the outermost part of the Solar System, beyond the asteroid belt. Their main characteristic is that they lack a well-defined solid nucleus. Instead, most of the mass is in gaseous state, forming a large mass of gas that makes up most of the planet. They would be Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
How many rings does Saturn have
The Planet Saturn It is without a doubt the planet of the rings par excellence. Not surprisingly, it is the planet in the Solar System with the best-defined and easiest-to-identify rings of all. In fact, it must be borne in mind that the rings are not units in themselves, but an optical effect resulting from the placement of millions of dust, rock and ice particles orbiting the planet. However, as they can be differentiated from each other, they have been identified by different names.
The planet Saturn has a total of six rings, each one called A, B, C, D, E and F. Of these rings, which are not distributed in alphabetical order on the planet, the most important are the rings A and B, which, in turn, are separated from each other by the Cassini division, a region that looks like an "empty ring" and that separates the two main rings of the planet Saturn.
Does Uranus have rings?
As we have seen, the Uranus planet It is also one of the planets in the Solar System that has a ring system own. In fact, it is the most important ring system in the system after Saturn. However, it is a ring system that goes much more unnoticed due to both the greater distance from the Sun and the composition of the rings, which makes them extremely narrow. Currently, a total of 13 rings are known in Uranus, which are named after different Greek letters and, of all of them, the most important is the epsilon (ε) ring.
If you want to read more articles similar to Planets with rings in the Solar System, we recommend that you enter our category of Curiosities of the Earth and the universe.
