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To: alexander_busek

Was just a question. If you know the answer, just tell me, rather than being sarcastic about it. Science and physics isn’t within the stronger part of my knowledge base. When I don’t know something, I simply just ask. :p


18 posted on 09/21/2014 1:53:00 PM PDT by KoRn (Department of Homeland Security, Certified - "Right Wing Extremist")
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To: KoRn
Was just a question. If you know the answer, just tell me, rather than being sarcastic about it. Science and physics isn’t within the stronger part of my knowledge base. When I don’t know something, I simply just ask. :p

Ask, and ye shall receive:

The rings of Saturn are not solid rings - rather, they merely appear to be such. In actual fact, they are merely millions upon millions of individual moonlets, each describing an independent orbit around Saturn.

Saturn does pull each moonlet towards itself. That is, each moonlet is indeed responding to Saturn's tremendous gravity - rather than, say, flying off at a tangent and away from Saturn forever. So, each moonlet is falling towards Saturn, just as an apple dropping from a tree on Earth falls towards Earth (accelerating at a rate of 32 ft per second per second). However, each moonlet happens to have just the right speed at a tangent to its orbit which might be said to be counteracting (not resisting - just compensating for) its fall.

How is it that each moonlet has exactly the "right" speed - to prevent it from falling into Saturn, or flying away into space? Intelligent Design? No! It merely happens that all the other moonlets - with too high or too low a speed - were, in fact, thrown into space or engulfed by Saturn, respectively. So, what we see are the survivors (The Selection Effect).

Regards,

19 posted on 09/21/2014 9:10:01 PM PDT by alexander_busek (Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.)
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