If the Earth had Rings

[tSwitch]

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UT2sQ7KIQ-E[/yt]

this is so cool

[Irock]

this is so cool

[Grafikal]

i kind of wish we lived somewhere on a planet that had rings and like 4 moons that we could always see.

[Holkeye]

Isn't there some natural/physical law that makes life on ringed planets impossible? I could be wrong, but I thought I heard something once about there being something different with the atmosphere or gravity of ringed planets.

[Grafikal]

i would imagine so. If the moon is close enough to pull waves, you could only imagine having a giant ring circling the planet doing the same or similar. I guess it would night or shaded basically all the time for certain parts of the planet that fall just under the rings from the sun and what-not too. Still though, it'd be pretty spectacular to wake up and look outside at something like that.

[Nightwolf]

Wow, thats beautiful.

Music is good too.

[joy]

...you mean ave maria?

[modern algebra]

lol, it's only comments like that that remind me this is a video game forum

[tSwitch]

I guess it would night or shaded basically all the time for certain parts of the planet that fall just under the rings from the sun and what-not too.

I think those areas would have a day/night cycle similar to alaska, considering that the shadow from the rings would fall on a different place on the earth depending on what point in the earth's rotation it was.

So the northern hemisphere would have the band of shadow during its winter time, as would the southern hemisphere.

I'm not sure it'd impact plant life much, as plants go dormant during the winter time, and don't grow, so photosynthesis is much less important.  I mean, grass lives even when it's completely covered with ice and therefore getting zero sunlight.

However I'd expect that the gravitational effects on the earth's tides would be constant.  The equator would have more of the oceans due to the gravity being concentrated there, and so tides wouldn't be as high towards either end of the earth.  I'm not sure that'd make life impossible, but I'm not a physicist or an ecologist so everything I'm saying here is conjecture based on what I've learned through school.

[Grafikal]

Yeah, what you're saying makes sense. There's probably a lot more to it that we hadn't thought of or something.

[NPC]

My only issue is the whole "bright as the sun" thing, I don't know about you, but the one little sun we have is bright enough, I would not want to be driving into a wall of sun.

Also, if you are prone to sun burns... yeah

[tSwitch]

My only issue is the whole "bright as the sun" thing, I don't know about you, but the one little sun we have is bright enough, I would not want to be driving into a wall of sun.

Also, if you are prone to sun burns... yeah

as bright as the moon is what they said.

[NPC]

Well I feel dumb now.

The shade would probably only last a few hours a day in the morning and in the nigh for most places and only during there winter. Also during the winter the ring would likely look like a large black line across the sky

Religion too would be radically different and probably focus on the big arc in the sky, most likely to be thought of as either god, heaven, or both. Prayer for many religions would be in the direction of the ring. Also, the hours times of darkness in the winter would be considered holy hours.

Also, we wouldn't think it to be as awesome because we would probably be used to it. (We don't usually freak out when we notice the moon, do we?)

[Irock]

I still think the moon is beautiful, as well as a ton of other natural things I'm used to.

[strike]

nifty

[haloOfTheSun]

This is obviously photoshopped.

[Grafikal]

This is obviously photoshopped.

Lol, because I didn't notice that there wasn't a ring around the earth right now

[joy]

OMG! We -don't- have rings???

[EvilM00s]

I'm still waiting for a "rings around Uranus" joke...

Nifty vid, tho. I dug it.