Thursday, January 21, 2010

What if Earth had Saturn style rings?

Roy Prol gives us an animated tour of an Earth with just such a ring structure. Plus some killer views of what it would look like from the surface at different locals on the planet.

2 comments:

Beam Me Up said...

Dorn asked this question:

I wonder if they would appear as solid as they did in the animation. Also, what would the shadow caused by the bands do to the desert and jungle regions around the world? I would think things would have a harder time growing and may be the desert would be cooler thus sustaining life easier. Thanks for posting this.

(sorry Dorn, I hit the wrong button and erased it accidentally...PAC)

Beam Me Up said...

Solid? From earth's surface I suspect so. Most of the artifacts in the rings are very small and they would be in geo/sync.

As for ecological impact, I wonder. Since rain forests as a rule are tropical and jungles would be equatorial, I would suspect little impact. If we look at how they appear in animation, the ring appears as a very thin line at the equator which I suspect would have limited effect. None? no, I suspect there would be some effect, minor temp drop and a percentage drop in available sunlight. In the upper latitudes, it would of course be more pronounced but not the pronounced shadow that it appears to be (more like a partial eclipse) and remember, we would not be in the shadow all the time. Different times of the year would mean less or more pronounced. It would be spectacular and quite possibly would effect our weather patterns, I just wonder if it would be catastrophic.