Origin of Saturn’s rings and inner moons by mass removal from a lost Titan-sized satellite (original) (raw)
- Letter
- Published: 12 December 2010
Nature volume 468, pages 943–946 (2010)Cite this article
- 2540 Accesses
- 112 Citations
- 21 Altmetric
- Metrics details
Subjects
This article has been updated
Abstract
The origin of Saturn’s rings has not been adequately explained. The current rings are more than 90 to 95 per cent water ice1, which implies that initially they were almost pure ice because they are continually polluted by rocky meteoroids2. In contrast, a half-rock, half-ice mixture (similar to the composition of many of the satellites in the outer Solar System) would generally be expected. Previous ring origin theories invoke the collisional disruption of a small moon3,4, or the tidal disruption of a comet during a close passage by Saturn5. These models are improbable and/or struggle to account for basic properties of the rings, including their icy composition. Saturn has only one large satellite, Titan, whereas Jupiter has four large satellites; additional large satellites probably existed originally but were lost as they spiralled into Saturn6. Here I report numerical simulations of the tidal removal of mass from a differentiated, Titan-sized satellite as it migrates inward towards Saturn. Planetary tidal forces preferentially strip material from the satellite’s outer icy layers, while its rocky core remains intact and is lost to collision with the planet. The result is a pure ice ring much more massive than Saturn’s current rings. As the ring evolves, its mass decreases and icy moons are spawned from its outer edge7 with estimated masses consistent with Saturn’s ice-rich moons interior to and including Tethys.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 51 print issues and online access
$199.00 per year
only $3.90 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on SpringerLink
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Additional access options:
Similar content being viewed by others
Change history
18 November 2014
In the citation, the page range has been corrected (it was ‘943-926’).
References
- Cuzzi, J. N. et al. An evolving view of Saturn’s dynamic rings. Science 327, 1470–1475 (2010)
Article ADS CAS Google Scholar - Cuzzi, J. N. & Estrada, P. R. Compositional evolution of Saturn’s rings due to meteoroid bombardment. Icarus 132, 1–35 (1998)
Article ADS Google Scholar - Harris, A. W. in Planetary Rings (eds Greenberg, R. & Brahic, A.) 641–659 (University of Arizona Press, 1984)
Google Scholar - Charnoz, S., Morbidelli, A., Dones, L. & Salmon, J. Did Saturn’s rings form during the Late Heavy Bombardment? Icarus 199, 413–428 (2009)
Article ADS Google Scholar - Dones, L. A recent cometary origin for Saturn’s rings? Icarus 92, 194–203 (1991)
Article ADS Google Scholar - Canup, R. M. & Ward, W. R. A common mass scaling for satellites of gaseous planets. Nature 441, 834–839 (2006)
Article ADS CAS Google Scholar - Charnoz, S., Salmon, J. & Crida, A. The recent formation of Saturn’s moonlets from viscous spreading of the main rings. Nature 465, 752–754 (2010)
Article ADS CAS Google Scholar - Canup, R. M. & Ward, W. R. Formation of the Galilean satellites: conditions of accretion. Astron. J. 124, 3404–3423 (2002)
Article ADS Google Scholar - Sasaki, T., Stewart, G. R. & Ida, S. Origin of the different architectures of the Jovian and Saturnian satellite systems. Astrophys. J. 714, 1052–1064 (2010)
Article ADS Google Scholar - Barr, A. C., Citron, R. I. & Canup, R. M. Origin of a partially differentiated Titan. Icarus 209, 858–862 (2010)
Article ADS Google Scholar - Showman, A. P., Stevenson, D. J. & Malhotra, R. Coupled orbital and thermal evolution of Ganymede. Icarus 129, 367–383 (1997)
Article ADS Google Scholar - Barr, A. C. & Canup, R. M. Origin of the Ganymede-Callisto dichotomy by impacts during the late heavy bombardment. Nature Geosci. 3, 164–167 (2010)
Article ADS CAS Google Scholar - Friedson, A. J. & Stevenson, D. J. Viscosity of rock-ice mixtures and applications to the evolution of icy satellites. Icarus 56, 1–14 (1983)
Article ADS Google Scholar - Fortney, J. J., Marley, M. S. & Barnes, J. W. Planetary radii across five orders of magnitude in mass and stellar insolation: application to transits. Astrophys. J. 659, 1661–1672 (2007)
Article ADS CAS Google Scholar - Marley, M. S., Fortney, J. J., Hubickyj, O. & Lissauer, J. J. On the luminosity of young Jupiters. Astrophys. J. 655, 541–549 (2007)
Article ADS Google Scholar - Haisch, K. E., Lada, E. A., Jr & Lada, C. J. Disk frequencies and lifetimes in young clusters. Astrophys. J. 553, L153–L156 (2001)
Article ADS CAS Google Scholar - Goldreich, P. & Tremaine, S. The dynamics of planetary rings. Annu. Rev. Astron. Astrophys. 20, 249–283 (1982)
Article ADS Google Scholar - Goldreich, P. & Tremaine, S. The origin of the eccentricities of the rings of Uranus. Astrophys. J. 243, 1062–1075 (1981)
Article ADS MathSciNet Google Scholar - Benz, W. & Asphaug, E. Catastrophic disruptions revisited. Icarus 142, 5–20 (1999)
Article ADS Google Scholar - Goldreich, P. & Ward, W. R. The formation of planetesimals. Astrophys. J. 183, 1051–1061 (1973)
Article ADS Google Scholar - Salmon, J., Charnoz, S., Crida, A. & Brahic, A. Long-term and viscous evolution of dense planetary rings. Icarus 209, 771–785 (2010)
Article ADS Google Scholar - Ward, W. R. & Cameron, A. G. W. Disc evolution within the Roche limit. Proc. Lunar Planet. Sci. Conf. IX, 1205 (1978)
ADS Google Scholar - Daisaka, H., Tanaka, H. & Ida, S. Viscosity in a dense planetary ring with self-gravitating particles. Icarus 154, 296–312 (2001)
Article ADS Google Scholar - Robbins, S. J., Stewart, G. R., Lewis, M. C., Colwell, J. E. & Sremcevic, M. Estimating the masses of Saturn’s A and B rings from high-optical depth _N_-body simulations and stellar occultations. Icarus 206, 431–445 (2010)
Article ADS Google Scholar - Ida, S., Canup, R. M. & Stewart, G. R. Lunar accretion from an impact-generated disk. Nature 389, 353–357 (1997)
Article ADS CAS Google Scholar - Canup, R. M. & Ward, W. R. A hybrid fluid/N-body model for lunar accretion. Proc. Lunar Planet. Sci. Conf. XXXI, 1916 (2000)
ADS Google Scholar - Jaumann, R. et al. in Saturn from Cassini-Huygens (eds Dougherty, M. K., Esposito, L. W. & Krimigis, S. M. ) 637–681 (Springer, 2009)
Book Google Scholar - Meyer, J. & Wisdom, J. Tidal heating in Enceladus. Icarus 188, 535–539 (2007)
Article ADS Google Scholar - Melosh, H. J. A hydrocode equation of state for SiO2 . Meteorit. Planet. Sci. 42, 2079–2098 (2007)
Article ADS CAS Google Scholar - Canup, R. M. Simulations of a late lunar-forming impact. Icarus 168, 433–456 (2004)
Article ADS CAS Google Scholar
Acknowledgements
I thank W. R. Ward and L. Dones for detailed comments. Support from NASA’s Outer Planets Research Program is gratefully acknowledged.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
- Planetary Science Directorate, Southwest Research Institute, 1050 Walnut Street, Suite 300, Boulder, Colorado 80302, USA ,
Robin M. Canup
Authors
- Robin M. Canup
You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar
Corresponding author
Correspondence toRobin M. Canup.
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The author declares no competing financial interests.
Supplementary information
Supplementary Information
This file contains Supplementary Information and Data 1-9, Supplementary Figures 1-3 with legends and additional references. (PDF 608 kb)
PowerPoint slides
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Canup, R. Origin of Saturn’s rings and inner moons by mass removal from a lost Titan-sized satellite.Nature 468, 943–946 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature09661
- Received: 24 May 2010
- Accepted: 05 November 2010
- Published: 12 December 2010
- Issue Date: 16 December 2010
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature09661
This article is cited by
Long-Term Evolution of the Saturnian System
- Matija Ćuk
- Maryame El Moutamid
- Melaine Saillenfest
Space Science Reviews (2024)
Are Saturn’s rings actually young?
- Aurélien Crida
- Sébastien Charnoz
- Luke Dones
Nature Astronomy (2019)
Evolution of Saturn’s mid-sized moons
- Marc Neveu
- Alyssa R. Rhoden
Nature Astronomy (2019)
Ring detected around a dwarf planet
- Amanda A. Sickafoose
Nature (2017)
- Amanda A. Sickafoose
Saturn’s F ring and shepherd satellites a natural outcome of satellite system formation
- Ryuki Hyodo
- Keiji Ohtsuki
Nature Geoscience (2015)
Comments
By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.