What if earth had rings like saturn

Space and science fiction illustrator Ron Miller has created magnificent images of how Earth's skies would appear if our planet had giant rings. The sunsets would be impossibly beautiful. The evening sky would glitter with a thousand silver arcs. If Earth had rings like Saturn, you'd only have to look up to get a spectacular show. Veteran astronomy artist Ron Miller has created some stunning views of what our skies would look like if Earth were a ringed planet, and they make me want to launch a Kickstarter campaign to make it happen.

In a recent article for sci-fi blog io9 , Miller presented his wild visions of a ringed Earth and what the sky would look like from various places on our planet. These cosmic landmarks would be visible both day and night. Earth's hypothetical rings would differ in one key way from Saturn's; they wouldn't have ice. Earth lies much closer to the sun than Saturn does, so radiation from our star would cause any ice in Earth's rings to sublime away.

Still, even if Earth's rings were made of rock, that might not mean they would look dark. But the full moon "looks really bright because there's a lot of light falling on it, and because it's so close to us," said Caleb Scharf, director of astrobiology at Columbia University in New York City.

How bright might Earth's rings get? The absolute closest the rings could get is somewhere above the atmospheric layer known as the thermosphere, which reaches up as high as miles 1, km , according to the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research.

So, commercial airplanes, which typically fly up to 7 miles 11 km , would be fine. We'll discuss satellites and space travel later.

Meanwhile, atmospheric drag would bring down any ring matter that descended too low. If this happened, the rocky material would burn up like a shooting star in a fiery streak.

Related: Amazing infographic: Earth's atmosphere top to bottom. Just how far might the rings extend from Earth? Any object orbiting within a certain distance of Earth, known as its Roche limit, will break apart due to the force of Earth's gravity. Once broken, these shattered objects would join the rocky ring. For instance, any object the size of Earth's moon that fell below about 7, miles 11, km from Earth's surface would disintegrate, forming a ring around the planet.

All in all, Earth's outer rings would likely orbit even closer to our planet than does Earth's moon. Whether or not Earth sported one ring or many depends on whether Earth also possessed "shepherd moons," small moons that clear gaps between rings and help keep particles confined within a ring, much like a sheepdog keeps sheep from wandering astray.

Saturn's rings possess a number of shepherd moons, such as Prometheus. Shepherd moons in Earth's rings might resemble shining pearls circling around the edges of the rings. Would you be able to survive in this new world? Could you get yourself a pet All over the world, people are treating bodies of water like they are giant garbage dumps.

And experts say that continuing these practices will result in catastrophic What do you say we try to survive on an Earth They suck your blood and spread disease, killing nearly one million people each year. Are we talking about vampires?

Related videos. What If Carbon Disappeared for 5 Seconds? What If Earthquakes Lasted a Year? What If Our Oceans Froze? Add comment. If Earth had rings like Saturn our sunsets would be an incredible spectacle.

It isn't farfetched as the Earth did have rings a very long time ago, the result of a cataclysmic planetary crash that preceded the formation of the moon. You may also like.

One species, known as the dung beetle, actually navigates using the stars as a road-map. Another species, the swallow-tailed gull native to the Galapagos Islands , have their behavior modified by lunar cycles. During the winter time in the northern hemisphere, the shadow cast by the rings would cause the temperature to be a little bit cooler in the winter and potentially hotter during the summer.

How much the temperature would change depends on the thickness of the rings. Any pieces of space rock traveling at a certain speed could flat out obliterate any equipment, which would definitely be a problem for any manned missions beyond our own back door. In short, if Earth had rings, life would probably still exist, but not life as we know it.