Saturn's rings are thinner than a city
The main rings span hundreds of thousands of kilometres and are, over much of their extent, only tens of metres thick.
Established2 min read
From Earth the rings vanish when they are presented edge-on, which is a clue to the thinness. Cassini's radio and stellar occultations measured it. Characteristic thicknesses for the main rings are tens of metres, locally perhaps a hundred. The diameter of the system is about 270,000 kilometres.
The ratio is absurd and real. If a sheet of paper had the same proportions it would be the size of a city and still be paper. Bending waves, edges, and the spokes and moonlets complicate any single number. They do not thicken the rings into a slab you could stand a house in.
Caveats
- Thickness varies. Some warped edges and bending waves are thicker than the quiet mid-ring.
- 'Tens of metres' is a characteristic scale from occultations, not a uniform machined sheet.
Sources
- 1Cuzzi J. N. et al.. An evolving view of Saturn's dynamic rings. Science 327, 2010.