When Earth had rings

[GolfPopper]

I find myself, perhaps irrationally, quite irked that the picture headlining the article uses a picture of current Earth with rings, when Earth's surface 466 million years ago looked much different[1]. The paper itself [2] does have a map, although (understandably) not an artist's depiction. Most other sources covering the paper appear to have repurposed "ringed terrestrial planet" artwork, but I found one has an artist's rendition[3] to mollify myself.

1. https://dinosaurpictures.org/ancient-earth#450 2. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X2... 3. https://www.yahoo.com/news/earth-had-saturn-rings-466-182200...

[jtwaleson]

I live in the Netherlands, which has a province reclaimed from the sea in the 20th century. You'd be surprised how many documentaries of "Europe during the ice ages" etc show this province (Flevoland) on their maps. Always makes me chuckle.

[Sparkyte]

I was about to write this complaint myself then I found your comment. The planet would've looked completely different and unrecognizable when we had rings.

I mean technically we have rings now too thanks to Elon Musk and the billions of space trash orbiting the planet. But Earth with rings legit rings was a whole other experience.

[amelius]

Nice opening image, but what would the view be like from Earth?

[jessriedel]

Ron Miller is an artist who made some very nice visualizations. I can’t vouch for the scientific accuracy, but they seem plausible enough to me, and consistent with the images I’ve seen of Saturn’s rings from nearby probes.

https://www.planetary.org/articles/20130626-earths-skies-sat...

[KineticLensman]

Off the top of my head, if the rings were a narrow band around the Earth, and were aligned with the terrestrial equator, they would be less visible from high or low latitudes. If they were aligned with the plane of the ecliptic, then they would be visible as a band following the 'zodiac constellations', and thus visible much further North and South.

At night, in the shadow of the Earth, I'd think that they would be dark, perhaps even invisible. Perhaps moonlight would serve to illuminate them, depending on the relative position of the Sun and Moon.

I'd guess they would look most impressive around and dusk. The particle density and albedo would influence whether they would be visible during full daylight. The ring density would affect whether they had sharp edges or simply faded out away from the centre.

[ChumpGPT]

> Planetary rings may be one of space’s many spectacles, but in our solar system, they’re a dime a dozen. While Saturn’s rings are the brightest and most extensive, Jupiter and Uranus and Neptune have them, too,likely the dwindling remains of shredded asteroids or comets.

Reading "The Ring Makers of Saturn", Dr. Bergrun suggests something very different.

[justinclift]

Hmmm, Asteroid 99942 Apophis will get pretty close (~50k kms) when it does its near earth fly by in 2929: https://theskylive.com/apophis-info

Wonder if that's close enough for it to break into pieces? :)

[justinclift]

*2029

[mkl]

https://archive.ph/A2ZhJ

[forgot-im-old]

May see rings around Earth again.. it's the expected state that space debris settles into after Kessler Syndrome.

[keyle]

I was about to make a snarky comment about starlink. It's getting harder to take a shot of the sky without one of those pesky floaties.

[sandworm101]

There isnt nearly enough mass up there in all the foreseeable sat constellations. They need enough collective mass to overcome the extreem orbital inclinations/speeds we use for sats. For a visible ring to form, we would have to send billions of sats into high/slow orbits and then just forget about them for millions of years. Even then, they would likely form into mini moons first before those moons eventually broke up into rings.

[golergka]

Wouldn't all LEO stuff just de-orbit and burn eventually?

[veunes]

Sustainable space exploration is needed

[chaosmanorism]

Kessler syndrome is inevitable if Elon & Trump get their way, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/2811927/trump-propos...

[nprateem]

The ring of Uranus. One of the wonders of the solar system.