Wait A Minute. Why Don't Any Of The Solar System's Moons Have Rings?

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Of the eight planets in the Solar System, half have rings of dust and ice orbiting their equator. Mars is thought to have once had a ring . Some of the dwarf planets have rings (though sometimes astronomers can't figure out how ). Even some asteroids have rings .

It was while studying the notion of ringed moons outside of the Solar System – dubbed cronomoons – that this question started to bother astrophysicist Mario Sucerquia of the Adolfo Ibáñez University in Chile and his colleagues.

"This absence seemed counterintuitive given the prevalence of rings elsewhere, so we wanted to explore whether there might be underlying dynamical reasons preventing ring formation or long-term stability around moons."

We're yet to detect a moon outside the Solar System, but Sucerquia and his colleagues hypothesized in 2021 that should one have a large enough ring system , it could conceivably blot out enough starlight to make itself known.

But then it occurred to them that we've never actually seen a moon with rings – opening up the very real possibility that they can't exist.

Well, when you're an astronomer with a question and simulation tools at your disposal, there's only one thing to do: you make little models of cosmic systems, and study what happens when you set them wheeling into motion.

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