Curious Kids: what are the rings around planets made of?

By Maggie Lieu, Research Fellow, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nottingham

What are the rings around planets made of? – Vihan, aged five, Chennai, India

Lots of us are familiar with pictures of the planet Saturn and its unmistakable ring. In fact, Saturn doesn’t have just one ring – if you look through a telescope, you will see that Saturn actually has at least eight rings. This is called a ring system.

Saturn is not the only planet with rings. Jupiter, Neptune and Uranus all have ring systems too, but their rings are smaller, dimmer and more difficult…

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