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My 9 year old daughter told me last week that Uranus had rings, and I told her I really didn't think so, are you thinking of Saturn? And she said nope, they bot
by ohwellhere 3y ago
My 9 year old daughter told me last week that Uranus had rings, and I told her I really didn't think so, are you thinking of Saturn? And she said nope, they both do. What a weird bit of knowledge to get wrong, even at 9, so I looked it up. She was delighted to have taught me something.
- mykowebhn 3y agoNeptune has rings as well, as does Jupiter.
- helpfulContrib 3y ago[dead]
- jinushaun 3y agoThat’s crazy to hear. To me, after Saturn, Uranus is the most famous planet with rings because it’s vertical instead of horizontal. That’s the defining feature of Uranus.
- dustincoates 3y agoIt's exactly why Uranus was my favorite planet growing up. It was such an outlier, which, if I dig farther into my psyche, probably aligned well with my self view as the only kid in my class who geeked out on space.
- euroderf 3y agoSpeaking of Psyche (and mythology), the names of Uranus's moons are excellent.
- ykonstant 3y agoFor me it is precisely because I always had in mind the "featureless blue sphere" picture in mind, and never bothered to look deeper. Goes to show how important images are in the public sphere.
- User23 3y agoTo me, after Saturn, Uranus is the most famous planet with rings because of toilet humor. As an aside, either get or borrow a decent telescope and see the rings of Saturn and the Galilean Moons for yourself. It’s a really neat experience and gives you a direct personal shared experience with the birth of modern astronomy.
- davely 3y agoSeeing Jupiter, its Great Red Spot, and a line of dots representing 4 of its largest moons, as well as Saturn and its rings through a telescope at a backyard astronomy event when I was a kid was such a ridiculously cool experience. Granted, I was a huge space dork.
- onetimeuse92304 3y agoThe defining feature of Uranus is that its axis of rotation is at almost right angle to the axis of rotation of Solar system. The rings just conform to that axis of rotation along with moons and such. Also, rings are thought to be relatively recent feature of Uranus (on the order of hundreds of millions of years).
- rebolek 3y agoIIRC, Saturn's rings are also relatively recent feature. If you think about it, what a time to be alive! Saturn and Uranus have rings and Sun and Moon are in so precious position, that we can experience total eclipse (this won't last too long also, relative to age of Solar system).
- AlecSchueler 3y agoMakes me curious what past/future aspects of our solar system we would have considered special had we been alive then.
- jackcosgrove 3y agoLiquid water oceans on Mars are believed to have existed in the past.
- onetimeuse92304 3y agoIf it makes you feel better, outer planets with all their moons will be in habitable zone for a short time when our Sun will reach red giant stage in some billions of years.
- Vicinity9635 3y ago"the appalachian mountains are older than saturn’s rings. the appalachian mountains are older than dinosaurs. the appalachian mountains are older than trees. the appalachian mountains are literally older than BONES. the appalachian mountains should be regarded with pure terror."
- tnel77 3y agoWhenever my children teach me something, it makes us so happy. They, for teaching their dad. Me, for learning something from such a special little person. It’s just the best.
- nate 3y agoThis is my favorite part of my day. Yesterday we were just having dinner talking about god knows what when my 9 year old drops something into convo about The Homestead Act and how many acres you could by and how they had to be developed and all these bullet points about it I haven't retained when I may have read about it so many years ago. It was delightful. Now, there was also the part about her thinking the Mexican–American War was in 1989. Which is Taylor Swift's birthday, her favorite artist. Which is hilarious on so many levels.
- dcminter 3y agoMy godson once solemnly asked his dad "Were dinosaurs before or after steam engines?" which is obviously adorable.
- triceratops 3y ago> there was also the part about her thinking the Mexican–American War was in 1989. Which is Taylor Swift's birthday, So that's what The Great War is about!
- idiotsecant 3y agoI have learned that to most kids anything before 2000 is basically ancient history that all blends together.
- dylan604 3y ago> Now, there was also the part about her thinking the Mexican–American War was in 1989 there was a president that thought we had airplanes during the revolutionary war, so hopefully the date mix up wasn't judged too harshly
- Bud 3y ago[dead]
- z3phyr 3y agoNeptune also has a ring. Jupiter also has ring, but it is not apparent.
- antognini 3y agoThey are very faint and difficult to detect. They weren't even observed directly when they were discovered. They were originally discovered when astronomers noticed that they occulted light of background stats.
- Log_out_ 3y agoOccluded
- antognini 3y agoIn astronomy we use the term "occulted" when one body passes in front of another and blocks its light.
- Log_out_ 3y agoTIL. Thank you
- wholinator2 3y agoThat's so strange? 'Occluded' would be a suitable word for that meaning-wise though right? When did astronomy decide to use such a close sounding but different meaning word? Did occult mean what it does now when they started? Language is so strange
- 1-more 3y agoThe sciences are full of new-latin and neo-greek formations like Biology and Astronomy. So reaching back the the original meaning of occult "to hide (from)" isn't that big a stretch. Especially when "occlude" comes from a word meaning "to shut (away)" and an eclipse isn't shutting the sun away, just hiding it. The Mahdi isn't just standing behind something, he's hidden away in another plane. That's why he's the occluded imam. But also occlude has a chemistry meaning when one substance gets hidden inside another, so maybe it was too overloaded to be a good word for that.
- davidcuddeback 3y ago
- Pxtl 3y agoActually all 4 gas giants have rings, they're just much smaller and less visible than Saturn's. Jupiter and Neptune's rings are very slight, compared to Uranus' substantial ones and of course Saturn's gaudy decoration.
- manicennui 3y agoI highly recommend checking out what we learned about Saturn's rings from Cassini. One example: https://science.nasa.gov/resource/the-tallest-peaks-2/ https://science.nasa.gov/resource/the-tallest-peaks-2/
- EdwardDiego 3y agoWoah, that's amazing.
- matthoiland 3y agoMy daughter said there are 5 oceans ... I said she was wrong, then we looked at a modern map. Who forgot to send out the memo about the Southern Ocean?
- patwolf 3y agoSame. That to me felt more shocking than losing Pluto as a planet.
- wholinator2 3y agoI don't know but if you find out could you put me on the mailing list? Or i guess i could have a child but one of those seems a lot easier. In all honesty, is there any place where i can view the curriculum that children in my area are being taught? They don't tell us about those changes but they might put it somewhere. I, for one, think the news should do something useful and teach us the updates from time to time. Could you imagine if all that politicking was instead useful scientific information?
- blindriver 3y agoMy kid, after watching some YouTube videos on prehistoric man, told me that the theory of the Missing Link was wrong. I was like, “Wait, what? When did that happen?” Apparently it was disproven for decades and I never knew. I felt like the old people who held onto their old beliefs that I felt such disdain for. He also went on to tell me that the brontosaurus didn’t exist either and I had enough.
- 1-more 3y agoBrontosaurus is controversial! A paper in 2015 asserts that it's distinct from Apatosaurus. When I was in school it was well understood to be just another name for the apatosaurus. Some teacher claimed it was an apatosaurus with the head and tail switched. But there's been some activity in this space!! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brontosaurus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brontosaurus
- gitaarik 3y agoWhat? The missing link in human evolution, the link between primate and homo sapien, has been found? Not as far as I understand.
- alexchamberlain 3y agoNext she'll tell you that Pluto isn't a planet and there are at least 5 other dinosaurs than T-Rex, diplodocus and raptor... In all seriousness, it's really quite interesting to see what has changed in 30 years.
- divbzero 3y agoYes, all four gas giants in our Solar System have rings: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_system#Ring_systems_of_planets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_system#Ring_systems_of_pl...