What If The Earth Had Rings Like Saturn?

[EnolaGaia]

Here's an oldie but goodie ...

Some years ago illustrator Ron Miller created a set of images showing how earth's skies would appear from different locations if our planet had rings positioned and proportioned like those of Saturn.

There's a surprising variety of ring presentations depending on where and when one might observe them.

What would Earth's skies look like with Saturn's rings?

Illustrator and author Ron Miller specializes in, among other things, incredible visualizations of other worlds. He has rendered the surface of Titan, peered into black holes for Discover magazine, and designed a Pluto stamp that is currently hurtling toward the far reaches of our solar system aboard the New Horizonsspacecraft.

Now, Miller brings his visualizations back to Earth for a series exploring what our skies would look like with Saturn’s majestic rings. Miller strived to make the images scientifically accurate, adding nice touches like orange-pink shadows resulting from sunlight passing through the Earth’s atmosphere. He also shows the rings from a variety of latitudes and landscapes, from the U.S. Capitol building to Mayan ruins in Guatemala.

SOURCE: https://www.planetary.org/articles/20130626-earths-skies-saturns-rings

 

[EnolaGaia]

Author / journalist Charles Choi has a new Live Science article describing this speculative concept in more detail. This article includes more of Ron Miller's illustrations than were published when his earth-rings images first appeared years ago.

What if Earth had rings?

What might Earth be like crowned with rings? Space and science- fiction illustrator Ron Miller created extraordinary images of how the sky might look if Earth possessed rings of the same proportions to our planet that Saturn's are to it.

Since the most stable place for rings is around a planet's equator, the appearance of the rings would depend on the latitude you are located at on the world's surface. For instance, near the equator at Quito, Ecuador, you would see the rings from edge on, so they would look like a thin line rising straight up from the horizon. ...

FULL STORY: https://www.livescience.com/what-if-earth-had-rings.html

 

[GNC]

Wait a minute - I read years ago that Earth does have rings, they're just invisible to the naked eye. Is that not true?

 

[hunck]

Wait a minute - I read years ago that Earth does have rings, they're just invisible to the naked eye. Is that not true?

According to this, no.

 

[skinny]

Probably most planets with moons have or have had rings of debris, at least in their protophases. It is likely Luna is a concretion of debris rings cast out by cataclysmic impacts.

It's natural to think of our epoch of human occupation as the be all and end all, but it really isn't the case from a cosmic perspective.

 

[GNC]

According to this, no.

How disappointing! According to that article, it might have had in the past, maybe that's what I remember reading. And if we get a really big asteroid strike, then we can again - something to look forward to.