Ringclimber

The Rings Of Saturn

The Rings of Saturn are an exciting and complex place which can be a compelling setting for adventure. But to understand the events in Ringclimber, you may want to know more about the Rings.

The Rings are an enormous place. To go from the outer edge of the Rings to the inner edge would be to travel a distance of about seventy or eighty thousand miles. By comparison, a trip around the world is about twenty-five thousand miles.

The Rings

While the Rings are wide, they are not terribly thick. Estimates range from a half-mile to a few hundred yards. For the purposes of Ringclimber, I have assumed a thickness which varies but which is roughly a half mile.

The Rings are made of billions of orbiting particles, ranging in size from dust to about fifteen feet in diameter. These particles are separated by some complex and not fully understood processes into subrings, and there are occasional gaps (such as the thin Encke Gap near the outer edge of the Rings, and the massive Cassini Division) which are not empty, but which are filled with a low density of fine particles. The major areas of the Rings are, in order inward: E, G, F, A, Keeler and Encke Gaps, more A ring, Cassini Division, Huygens (pronounced Higgens) Gap, the extremely dense and bright B ring, the Maxwell Gap, the coarse and semi-transparent C ring, and the D ring, which includes particles falling from the Rings into the equatorial atmosphere of Saturn.

The Rings also contain some embedded moonlets on the order of tens of miles in diameter.

All of these objects are probably largely water ice, with some coatings of dust and grit. It is easy to imagine that the complex dynamics of the Rings will concentrate and swirl these various particles into clouds and semi-opaque areas as well as places where, much like the eye of a hurricane, one feels as if suspended in a room walled with whiteness.

The Rings and the planet rotate roughly every ten hours. The Rings spend a certain amount of time in the shadow of the planet, and, of course, they cast their own shadow on the planet as well.

The environment of Saturn is one filled with the electrically charged particles of the solar wind. The Rings themselves absorb a significant amount of deadly radiation, and they also show evidence of being electrically charged to a significant level. As you can see in the photograph, the Rings show not only their "ringlike" structure, but there are also some triangular formations which form across thousands of miles in less than 5 minutes. These are called "spokes". They are thought to be clouds of electrically charged dust particles elevated above the rings by the strength of their electrical charge, and may be stimulated by meteor traffic through the Rings, but very little is known about them.

Rings and Spokes

There is even the possibility of major electrical discharges (i.e. lightning) in the Rings. I have assumed for the purposes of Ringclimber that there can be areas with major differences in charge, and that connecting two such areas (for instance with one's body) can cause a discharge from one to the other not too different from lightning. I have also assumed that the spokes represent an area where this danger is particularly acute.

As the characters know, crossing the Rings from edge to edge is an artificial challenge. There is no pedestrian need to travel within the Rings to make the crossing, as there is no pedestrian need to climb a mountain. But the stunning sights and the objective danger, added to the incredible endurance required, make the adventure of the Rings far greater than the longest sea voyage or a crossing of the Antarctic plateau, and force anyone who tries it to confront fear, and even death. Those who survive are the better for it.

References

Saturn - Gehrels, Matthews Eds., University Of Arizona Press, 1988

Voyages To Saturn - Morrison, NASA, 1982

Rings - Elliot and Kerr, MIT Press, 1984

Content, Layout, and Images Copyright © 1999 by Mark Cashman except where indicated (NASA photos)