The rings of Saturn

[ffutures]

When did the idea that the rings of Saturn are made of ice first appear? It doesn't seem to have been around in 1900, because George Griffith's In Saturn's Realm (1900) says

"It's quite evident," said Redgrave, "that those are rings of what we should call meteorites on earth, atoms of matter which Saturn threw off into Space after the satellites were formed ."

"And I shouldn't wonder, if you will excuse my interrupting you," said Zaidie, "if the moons themselves have been made up of a lot of these things going together when they were only gas, or nebula or something of that sort. In fact, when Saturn was a good deal younger than he is now, he may have had a lot more rings and no moons, and now these aerolites, or whatever they are, can't come together and make moons, because they've got too solid."

 

The idea is certainly there by the 1950s because Asimov's The Martian Way uses it in 1952.

I'm wondering if it was generally accepted in the 1930s when Weinbaum was writing his planetary stories.

Comments

[cdave]

I think it was an Asimov story I read that started with an introduction saying that the science in it was wrong today, but right when it was written.

It involved bringing a mountain sized lump of ice from Saturn's rings back to the inner solar system (and I think contained a prescient description of the feelings of a space walk).

By the time it was republished the known size of components of the rings had shrunk drastically.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

That's The Martian Way.

[cdave]

Doh! It's the Martian part that threw me

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

They fly the iceberg to Mars after Earth has decided to stop the Martian colonists taking water from expended stages of what sound like very inefficient tea-kettle type nuclear boosters.

[were-gopher.livejournal.com]

From the 1911 Britannica.

"The physical constitution of the rings is unlike that of any other object in the solar system. they are not formed of a continuous mass of solid or liquid matter, but of discrete particles of unknown minuteness, probably widely seperated in proportion to their individual volumes, yet so close as to appear continuous where viewed from the Earth."

It looks like they were already moving towards the small particle idea of what the rings were made of but whether the theory of them being ice came soon after this I don't know.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Judging by the 1900 story I quoted the idea was certainly around even then, but I suspect that the idea they might be ice came a little later.

[dsample.livejournal.com]

That Saturn's rings had to be made up of discreet particles was theoretically demonstrated in 1859 by James Clerk Maxwell. It was confirmed by observation in 1895 by James Keeler.

I haven't been able to find out when it was first proposed that they were primarily made up of ice, but I don't think anyone would have found the idea to be outlandish in 1930.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

It's a minor plot point for something I'm considering for the Weinbaum setting, not horrendously important, but I don't want to add anything to the setting that Weinbaum couldn't have heard of. I agree that it wouldn't sound outlandish - I just want to be sure that the idea was around in some form in his day.

For example, I'm extrapolating the technology of his atomic blast engines in various ways, most notably their use as power plants and for desalination, and the possibility of using them to melt rock etc., because that's pretty basic engineering that would undoubtedly be developed given the initial premise. But I'm not going to change them to make them work by our current version of nuclear physics.

[were-gopher.livejournal.com]

Just spoken to my Mum who has the 1929 Britannica. The entry is unchanged from what I wrote upthread.

1929 14th ed

Entry written by
Rev T E Reece Phillips ma, fras, fr met soc
secretary of RAS 1919-26 pres 1927-28

The position may have changed by later in the 30s but how well known it would be is another thing.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Thanks - sounds like I'd better skip it then.

[doctor-toc.livejournal.com]

Doesn't matter. As soon as Zadie said it, her theory became fact :-)

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Ah, you remember that bit, do you? I wonder how many people actually went with it when they ran that setting.

[doctor-toc.livejournal.com]

Remember it? I use it in almost every game I run, now :-)