What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn?
An examination of what Earth would be like with rings, from different latitudes and cities across the globe.
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18 Responses So Far
- yidongz thinks What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? is WTF
- bobbyv thinks What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? is Old, Ew & OMG
- deliandelao What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn?
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The video is cool, but a more detailed (and interesting, IMHO) analysis is on the Bad Astronomy Blog. Also available in French. :)
- Martynas C. thinks What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? is Cute
- Hannah L. What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? and thinks it’s OMG
- Can O. What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn?
- Holly C. What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn?
- LVTaur thinks What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? is OMG
- Andrea L. thinks What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? is OMG, Geeky & LOL
- blitzedcase thinks What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? is OMG & Geeky
- Stacy L. thinks What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? is OMG
- Adriana P. What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn?
- 80ady80 What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? and thinks it’s Geeky & Cute
- Justin S. What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? and thinks it’s Geeky
- Mercedes V. thinks What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? is Geeky
- eixo What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn?
- James Kurtz III What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? and thinks it’s Geeky
- mindyourmuffins What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? and thinks it’s OMG
- Lori B. What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn?
- Mariangely M. thinks What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? is OMG & Geeky
- What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? was rebuzzed by david bowie's mullet
- LeeAnn Hamers thinks What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? is WTF
- Josh Zambrano What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn?
- Amy thinks What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? is Geeky & OMG
- What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? was rebuzzed by Dave Friedel, Easily Impressed Lunatic
- Dave Friedel, Easily Impressed Lunatic What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn?
- stevenstorms thinks What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? is Geeky
- delicious kiwis thinks What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? is Geeky
- Katy T. thinks What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? is Geeky
- Crystal What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? and thinks it’s Geeky & OMG
- Sara Nitz What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn?
- YeahAmy! thinks What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? is WTF
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Make them out of plasma, now that would impress other sentient species.
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“How would the earth look like if it had rings?”
I'd be happy to find out how it looked if people could write grammatically correct questions.
- Meg A. thinks What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? is OMG
- Ivan Nikolic thinks What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? is OMG
- Bluewolf37 What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? and thinks it’s Cute & Geeky
- Thesmallestboyalive thinks What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? is Geeky & OMG
- MarcusNyce thinks What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? is Geeky
- Ethan thinks What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? is Geeky
- el hoozn What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? and thinks it’s OMG
- Obienator What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? and thinks it’s Geeky
- Brandon Shallenberger What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? and thinks it’s OMG & Geeky
- David R. What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn?
- kbounce What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? and thinks it’s OMG
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Esthetically, it's gorgeous. Practically, however, it would severely impact space flight. A spacecraft has to cross the equatorial belt twice per orbit. And while the Voyager spacecraft made it through Saturn's rings, it's not a maneuver you would want to try over and over. Eventually you'll have a collision. That creates debris which would soon impact other satellites, which would then impact still more satellites, etc. I took out a ruler and made some measurements on the image of the whole Earth at the opening of the video (yes, I am a nerd). The ring looks like it starts about 1,500 miles above the Earth's surface and ends about 5,000 miles up. So you can probably achieve low Earth orbits, where the Shuttle, Space Station, and Hubble Telescope fly. Communications satellites use a “geosynchronous” orbit, 22,000 miles above the Earth. If your rocket engine fails while you're trying to cross through the altitudes occupied by the ring, you will end up with an object that will eventually collide with the ring.
- David Chan What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn?
- Fernando C. What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn?
- Gailoh What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn?
- jalvear tweeted What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? Follow · Retweet
- The Uniblogger What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? and thinks it’s OMG & Geeky
- Michael H. What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? and thinks it’s Geeky
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Maybe Mars will finally pop the question and get us the ring we have all been dreaming of. I call Maid of Honor at the wedding!
- Ash What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? and thinks it’s OMG
- Angelica Mata What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn?
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What's this piece of music? I always forget the name.
- John L. What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn?
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Forget mission to mars, nasa needs to get onto creating us a ring system. I am SOLD
- The Internet's Very Own Veronica Belmont What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? and thinks it’s Geeky
- Conor H. What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? and thinks it’s OMG
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MOAR STUFF LIEK DIS PLZ?
- Juan F. What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn?
- Meru A. What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? and thinks it’s Cute
- lchen What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn?
- Jenny Young What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn?
- THE CULTURE OF ME thinks What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? is Geeky
- Jonah Peretti What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? and thinks it’s Geeky
- Joshua S. What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn?
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What about the shadow cast by the rings? Would it appear to be night time where the shadow fell?
- CTJen thinks What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? is Geeky
- Gary DeLeone What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn?
- Lynn W. thinks What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? is Geeky
- Dino C. What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn?
- Chris Rosa thinks What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? is Geeky
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Thank god we don't have rings like Saturn. It would only be a short amount of time before some asshole would want to shoot advertising all over it. Great visualization, but I pass.
- jeffstevens199 thinks What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? is Geeky
- Marie Lamb thinks What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? is Geeky
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If this were true I bet we'd have some weird ass religions worshipping those rings.
- Greg Shortall What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn?
- Tia D. What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn?
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Beautiful as this is, I'd be bummed if I was one of the people living under the constant shadow in the southern hemisphere.
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beautiful
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That would be cool to put rings around the Earth. I like to think that maybe someday, thousands of years from now, humans leave Earth and make it a type of nursery for some other sentient species.
If that were to happen, their scientists could on and on about why and how those rings came about. Then humans could show up and go “Lol, nah we made them as a nursery mobile to make they sky look even more impressive.”
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very cool. I wish buzzfeed had more stuff like this every day. Less celeb bs
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Can we do this please? Let's put the world's best people on the job and make this happen people!
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Awesome! QUICK. Everyone get to work photoshopping the real Earth now!
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cool.
- nrgins tweeted What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? Follow · Retweet
- Glinner tweeted What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn? Follow · Retweet
