So what keeps Saturn's rings from coalescing into a new moon?
>>8539167
Well one of the reasons is that Saturn is massive as shit, hence great tidal forces will appear in any object near enough, these tidal forces will tend to dismantle anything that tries to agglomerate near it. There should be more explanations though.
>>8539167
They aren't massive enough, moving fast enough, or localized enough.
>>8539195
Thats true for any single band within the ring, but Saturns rings are also incredibly wide and each ring is uniformly distributed.
Do the rings define a zone where coellescence isnt possible due to tidal forces and past the outter most ring is where coellescence is possible?
>>8539225
>
Do the rings define a zone where coellescence isnt possible due to tidal forces and past the outter most ring is where coellescence is possible?
I has no idea, interesting question though.
>>8539225
Yes
>>8539167
i'll put it in scale for you to see why the rings dont group together.
just too spread out
Tidal forces and resonance with the satellites, if I remember correctly.
Tidal forces and time. Dust from them is slowly piling upon a couple of Shepard moons (Atlas and Pan) but the rings won't hang around for long, on planetary timescales. Most of it will either fall down into Saturn or be thrown into space before it can be incorporated into something significant.