Daily Archives: April 3, 2015

In class we learned that the divisions in Saturn’s rings are caused by orbital resonance. Orbital resonance is a phenomenon in which “two orbiting bodies exert a regular, periodic gravitational influence on each other,” usually because their orbital periods “match up”. For instance, if particles were in Saturn’s Cassini division, they would orbit twice for … Continue reading Orbital Resonances: They Space Out the Solar System → Continue reading →

In class we learned that the divisions in Saturn’s rings are caused by orbital resonance. Orbital resonance is a phenomenon in which “two orbiting bodies exert a regular, periodic gravitational influence on each other,” usually because their orbital periods “match up”. For instance, if particles were in Saturn’s Cassini division, they would orbit twice for … Continue reading Orbital Resonances: They Space Out the Solar System → Continue reading →