This makes Saturn’s rings a sort of recycling system in which new moons arise from the elements of the old. New moons can also form from the particles in Saturn’s rings, coalescing and sweeping up material in the rings as they orbit the planet. Some astronomers theorize that the rings formed when our solar system was young, when moons similar in size and ice content to Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, were drawn toward the planet by gravity and subsequently broke apart. Once thought to be young due to their brightness, the Cassini spacecraft mission showed that Saturn’s rings are actually quite ancient. Combined, Cassini and Webb will allow us to capture an entire Saturnian year. At the conclusion of NASA’s 13-year Cassini mission at Saturn, the spacecraft only observed about half of the planet’s 28-Earth-year seasonal cycle. These ring particles stick to each other at different rates depending on how warm or cold they are, coalescing into small objects that then fall apart again when conditions change. The water-ice particles that make up Saturn’s rings range in size from specks smaller than household dust to boulders the size of houses. As Saturn and its rings travel around the Sun, the tilt of the rings causes seasonal changes. They are active, dynamic structures that undergo daily temperature shifts, seasons, and even give birth to moons. Though we think of rings as being passive, decorative elements to a planet, they’re actually more like an extraplanetary surface. Webb’s infrared vision will reveal new detail. Saturn’s bright, distinctive rings are the most prominent rings in our solar system. Webb will also continue the study of Saturn’s rings. In visible light, the rings of Uranus, Neptune, and Jupiter are dark and indistinct, but they shine more clearly in infrared light. The James Webb Space Telescope’s infrared instruments are capable of providing astronomers with their best look yet at the composition and motion of the outer planets’ rings. Today we know that all four of our solar system’s giant planets have rings, but only Saturn’s have been studied in-depth. For centuries Saturn was famous as our solar system’s only ringed planet, encircled by wide, sweeping structures of water ice.
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