How Earth will look if it had a ring system like Saturn

[McHanhan]

I couldn't find anything like this via the searchbar.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoz5Q2rGQtQ

Some of the artist's renditions are quite well done I think, I especially like the rendition of how the rings would have looked from the skies of various cities. The equatorial cities have a cool column of light effect from the rings which is amazing I think.

What do you guys think life on earth would be like with a ring system? It was said in the description that if we did have rings around our planet they may have influenced certain religions and most definitely mythology. Do you agree?.

 

[Kaboose the Moose]

That's quite an amazing depiction of Earth with rings but I am of the opinion that it's a blessing such a thing does not exist around our planet. I would imaging ancient astronomy would be severely impaired with a massive dust screen in the way and that would put back several of the discoveries that revolutionized science, space travel in the modern age will also be hazardous due to the ridiculous number of debris that are capable of piercing a shuttle's outer skin or an astronaut during an EVA and last but not least, the placing of geostationary satellites might be a problem with all that rocks flying about. So telecommunications, GPS, weather forcasts and internet technology might be at a standstill. Hubble, Spacelab, Mir, ISS these would also be a difficult dream if we had rings, all that clutter would make an already complicated task even more complicated..

Then again I am only guessing here!.

 

[Bilbo536]

That looks amazing...
Can I haz ring system?

 

[RavingPenguin]

*fumbles for words*
Wow... just.. wow. That would be incredible, now I'm miffed that earth doesnt have rings.

 

[crudus]

We don't want that. Those rings are slowly falling towards Saturn. If Earth had those rings life on the planet would die when those hit. Although, it would be kickass if we had the 64 million kilometer diameter rings that Saturn does.

 

[RanD00M]

That looks amazing...
Can I haz ring system?

Actually no you cant.That would fuck the earth to much up.

 

[Kaboose the Moose]

That looks amazing...
Can I haz ring system?

I give you the Dyson sphere [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere]. Science is awesome!

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

*fumbles for words*
Wow... just.. wow. That would be incredible, now I'm miffed that earth doesnt have rings.

My thoughts almost exactly. I say ALMOST exactly because I don't think I've ever used the word "miffed" in my life

Also, they would definitely influence art greatly. and probably as OP said, religion and mythology. Possibly science as well, being as the nature of the rings would indicate that the earth is round, meaning we would be slightly ahead in that respect.

 

[Khedive Rex]

That is ... outstanding.

 

[Emilin_Rose]

That's quite an amazing depiction of Earth with rings but I am of the opinion that it's a blessing such a thing does not exist around our planet. I would imaging ancient astronomy would be severely impaired with a massive dust screen in the way and that would put back several of the discoveries that revolutionized science, space travel in the modern age will also be hazardous due to the ridiculous number of debris that are capable of piercing a shuttle's outer skin or an astronaut during an EVA and last but not least, the placing of geostationary satellites might be a problem with all that rocks flying about. So telecommunications, GPS, weather forcasts and internet technology might be at a standstill. Hubble, Spacelab, Mir, ISS these would also be a difficult dream if we had rings, all that clutter would make an already complicated task even more complicated..

Then again I am only guessing here!.

I do have to form some counterpoints here. The rings would have influenced everything right from the start, from weather to religion.

It's quite likely that all known religions now would be considered the projects of the insane and criminally stupid. Humans are resourceful creatures when forced and i'm sure would have come up with different means of navigation.

Furthermore, with something like that in the way of space exploration, humankind would have either had to advance their technologies in that area far more quickly than they have in our history, or redirected the scientific effort toward things like cleaning the environment and battling diseases.

Who's to say we'd even be as we are now with rings in place? we might have evolved with wings or gills or any number of things.

There's also the possibility of the rings affecting human theories and philosophies. Off the top of my head one idea might be "everything is an endless cycle, no matter how we try to fight it will continue on as it has. Therefore live not to live long but live fully that when the cycle begins again you may say in the end it was worth it".

not to make an argument out of this just a few counterpoints to think of as well

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Minor problem: Don't rings get formed from moons/asteroids that shatter in the gravity well and set up orbit?

That means we have to take a hit first, and the dinosaurs didn't like that last one.

IANAA though.

 

[Khedive Rex]

Okay, I've recovered.

First off, the concept that the earth was flat would never have come into fruition. Things like navigations would have been made incredably simple much earlier as a quick look at the current diameter of the ring and it's distance from the equator would give you your exact location from the equator.

From these two assumptions I argue that widespread exploration and colonization would have happened much earlier. In theory this might have resulted in us having a much longer written history of other countries. It may also have affected cash crop growth across the planet (ireland would have had the potato hundreds of years earlier, stuff like that.)

Not being an expert, I think that the areas directly north and south of the equator would have much different day/night patterns. It's possible they would be alternating six month things, much like alaska.

Apart from that, art, mythology, religion, literature, and many other things would be different. As far as human reaction goes, I imagine people would have a stronger interest in space exploration. Just because if you were living beneath something like that, you'd want to see what else was out there.

 

[Mikaze]

Yep, we need rings, now how can we get some?

 

[reggiejames]

Yep, we need rings, now how can we get some?

just blow up the moon, turn it into dust, and earth's gravity should do the rest. heavier particles will be closer while lighter bits would be the farthest.

 

[Maze1125]

First off, the concept that the earth was flat would never have come into fruition.

Such a concept never really existed anyway.
Every scholar and navigator throughout history has known the Earth was round. The idea we didn't know is itself a myth.

 

[GRoXERs]

Yep, we need rings, now how can we get some?

just blow up the moon, turn it into dust, and earth's gravity should do the rest. heavier particles will be closer while lighter bits would be the farthest.

Yup. Fuck it, let's blow up the moon. Put enough nukes on the near side of the moon, and you will a) kill all the electronics on half the earth and b) blow the moon into bite-sized chunks. So, as half the world descends into chaos and horrible turmoil, we'd all have some REALLY PRETTY rings to look at.

...until they crash into the earth a couple miles a second.

Meh. Let's do it and see what happens.

EDIT: Oh, and by the way, the moon isn't really big enough to give us Saturn-sized rings, nor do we have the requisite shepherd moons. We'd need to tow a couple asteroids or what-have-you into orbit to make the rings actually form and be sharply defined like Saturn's, and even then it wouldn't really be thick enough to actually block out sunlight completely. Instead, the rings' shadow(s) would result in a kind of twilight.

EDIT pt. 2: Also, I think blowing up the moon would destabilize Earth's orbit. As it is, the moon and Earth orbit around the center of mass of the system which is about 3/4 of the way up from Earth's core, about 1750 km from the surface directly below the moon. This imparts a pretty distinct wobble to earth's orbit around the sun, considered as independent from the moon (the center of mass of the earth+moon system travels in a fairly straightforward ellipse), so if the moon was blown up at the wrong time and/or if a significant percentage of the mass of the moon was lost, Earth could well end up spiraling into the sun or out of the solar system.

Either way? Totally worth it. Rings, man, RINGS!

 

[Kaboose the Moose]

That's quite an amazing depiction of Earth with rings but I am of the opinion that it's a blessing such a thing does not exist around our planet. I would imaging ancient astronomy would be severely impaired with a massive dust screen in the way and that would put back several of the discoveries that revolutionized science, space travel in the modern age will also be hazardous due to the ridiculous number of debris that are capable of piercing a shuttle's outer skin or an astronaut during an EVA and last but not least, the placing of geostationary satellites might be a problem with all that rocks flying about. So telecommunications, GPS, weather forcasts and internet technology might be at a standstill. Hubble, Spacelab, Mir, ISS these would also be a difficult dream if we had rings, all that clutter would make an already complicated task even more complicated..

Then again I am only guessing here!.

I do have to form some counterpoints here. The rings would have influenced everything right from the start, from weather to religion.

It's quite likely that all known religions now would be considered the projects of the insane and criminally stupid. Humans are resourceful creatures when forced and i'm sure would have come up with different means of navigation.

Furthermore, with something like that in the way of space exploration, humankind would have either had to advance their technologies in that area far more quickly than they have in our history, or redirected the scientific effort toward things like cleaning the environment and battling diseases.

Who's to say we'd even be as we are now with rings in place? we might have evolved with wings or gills or any number of things.

There's also the possibility of the rings affecting human theories and philosophies. Off the top of my head one idea might be "everything is an endless cycle, no matter how we try to fight it will continue on as it has. Therefore live not to live long but live fully that when the cycle begins again you may say in the end it was worth it".

not to make an argument out of this just a few counterpoints to think of as well

Indeed the rings would have had a significant impact on early man. Especially in the religious department which would have sprung different mythologies. Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and all those would have shaped their stories of gods, demi-gods based off the ring. The impact would most definitely be profound, it could even influence architecture (as shrines to the ring) to agriculture or astrological calendars. Navigation might have been a bit easier considering that there would be a fixed curve dividing the sky as a reference point. Also it can be argued and as you said, with difficulties in space exploration mankind would have more time and resources to dedicate towards terrestrial discoveries and projects; such as mapping our oceans (which in an alternative "ring based" earth might reveal more than we know currently) advances in medicine and whatnot. It's completely speculative..

however, we would not have at any rate evolved differently. Having rings in space might cause alteration to out magnetic field strength and gravitational constant but I doubt our genetics would lead us to have wing or gills. Humanities existence on Earth has only being for a short period of time and such a quantum leap in the gene pool would require a strong evolutionary change which I don't think the rings would have provided. Even if it did for some odd reason it would take many more centuries for genetic drift to result in a new evolutionary pathway for mankind. And even then that path may not necessarily express ones phenotypes as wing and gills.

Again it's all speculation; the rings, for all I know, may affect out tides and submerge all our cities in which case we may emerge as gill-people but it wouldn't have been an instantaneous transformation, such a thing would take millions of years to evolve properly and there is a good chance we would have been killed off anyway.

 

[Mikaze]

Yep, we need rings, now how can we get some?

just blow up the moon, turn it into dust, and earth's gravity should do the rest. heavier particles will be closer while lighter bits would be the farthest.

*wanders off to arm the nukes* Rings here we come.

 

[Kaboose the Moose]

Also I wonder what effect it would have on water. I mean, there's Moon and everything... Would the rings play an effect as well?

I am not sure about the rings affecting the water, collectively they could exert a tidal force on our waters but I believe the moon's gravitational force would first distort the rings. We know this happens for a fact because Saturn's moons distort the planet's rings all the time.

Here are pictures of two Saturn moons causing a ripple-like effect during their orbits.
http://inapcache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/saturn_10_19/s04_PIA11477.jpg
http://inapcache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/saturn_10_19/s09_PIA11571.jpg