Can a space ship land on the rings of Saturn?
Our friends at the Sharpe Planetarium in Memphis, Tennessee, are wondering whether a space ship could land on the rings of Saturn. This certainly would be an exciting mission, as the beautiful rings surrounding giant Saturn are one of the most intriguing and inviting sights in the solar system. For a spacecraft to land on the rings, they would have to present a good solid surface, just as much of Earth, the moon, and Mars do. If you look at a picture of Saturn, you might think the ring is a big disk, so you could land anywhere on it. And there definitely would be plenty of room for landing. The rings are so enormous that they are almost as wide as the distance between Earth and the moon! This would make a pretty good landing pad. But scientists have figured out that the ring is not a solid disk. Astronomers have observed the rings with telescopes for nearly 400 years, and they have used advanced mathematics for centuries to try to understand them. Three spacecraft have paid brief visit
