Rings of Saturn

In 1859 Maxwell, who had just completed a famous essay on the structure of the rings of Saturn, chanced to read a paper by Rudolph Clausius on gas theory. Maxwell had proved that the rings had to be com-... 

Note In ICR cells, the ions circulate like separate swarms of birds rather than like matter in the rings of Saturn. If ions of the same m/z non-coherently circulated at the same frequency and radius, but occupied the total orbit rather than a small sector of it, there would be no image current induced upon their passage at the detector plates. 

Bryce Canyon, a hillside of deciduous trees in autumn, the Overture of 1812, horses, a smiling little girl, Horsehead nebula, rings of Saturn, snow-capped mountain in a forest, palm trees on a Caribbean beach, newborn human infant, looks that pass between couples who have been happily married for 30 years, Ferrari Modena, Quebec City, the late Marian Anderson s voice, Newton s solution of the brachistochrone problem, a fresh pizza Martin Luther King Junior s I Have... 

Other natural hydrates have been suggested during the past few decades. Miller (1974) concluded that hydrates of carbon dioxide were on Mars, and Pang et al. (1983) indicated that the E rings of Saturn were hydrates. Delsemme and Miller (1970), Mendis (1974), and Makogon (1987) suggested that hydrates exist in comets in particular, carbon dioxide and water in comets were combined in the form of hydrates. 

Figure 4.12 Voyager 2 false-colour image of the rings of Saturn. Courtesy...

Clark R. N. and McCord T. B. (1980b) The rings of Saturn— new near-infrared reflectance measurements and a 0.326-4.08 p,m summary. Icarus 43, 161 -168. 

Water ice has now been observed on Europa, Ganymede (Pilcher et al. 1972 Fink et al. 1973), the rings of Saturn (Pilcher et al. 1970 Kuiper et al. 1970), and four satellites of Saturn (Fink et al. 1976 Morrison et al. 1976), It is feasible to extend such observations to a number of other satellites at resolution adequate to identify the dominant surface constituents. A probable identification of methane ice on Pluto has been made on this basis ( lorrison 1976b). 

From this observation we infer self-similarity on a cosmic scale, from atoms to galaxies, which implies the same numerical basis for the atomic models of Nagaoka and Bohr, assumed to be self-similar with the rings of Saturn and the planets, respectively. In principle, the periodic accumulation of extranuclear electron density on an atom could also be optimized by specifying an appropriate convergence angle. 

An interesting problem area that occupied Maxwell s attention from 1855 to 1859 was the nature of the rings of Saturn. He showed that certain ideas of the time, such as that Saturn had solid or rigid rings, were not possible. Instead, the stability of the rings require that they consist of concentric circles of small objects, the orbital speed of each circle being dependent on its distance from the planet. In 1895, the differential rotation of the rings Maxwell predicted almost 40 years earlier was confirmed by observation. 

The famous rings of Saturn extend from 6630 km to 120700 km above its surface. The rings are extremely thin, only 20 m and consist mainly of ice 93% is water ice, 7% is amorphous carbon. The sizes of the ring particles range from micrometers to several m. The gaps observed in the rings are caused by resonances with nearby satellites of Saturn. 

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