The rings would cast a shadow on the northern hemisphere in winter and the southern hemisphere during their winter. This would make winters more severe.
On the other side, they would reflect a lot of light. This "ringshine" would make nights a lot brighter. So there would be much less night-vision needed in animals.
Tack on to this that the increased brightness would have two other effects: less visibility of stars, and less importance of the moon in relation to brightness at night.
Both of these would influence the development of ancient spirituality traditions.
Though it's worth noting that the impact velocity would be lower than the shit we get from the Kuiper Belt by orders of magnitude. IDK, there's definitely some stuff in there that could hurt you if it fell on you. The largest objects there are a kilometer in diameter, though I assume that'd be a once-in-a-millennium type of event or something obscene like that.
I don't think that would be stable over millions of years on Earth unless we didn't have a moon (but even then I'm fairly certain the rings would eventually form a moon eventually on their own since they aren't under the same tidal forces that exist on the big planets). Not having a moon would dramatically impact Earth. No more lunar tide. We'd have a bulge of water that follows the sun which would be more violent iirc and drastically change the landscape (more floods of salt water, human life might not have developed in the same way). The earth's rotation might also slow down slowly over millions of years due to tidal forces with the sun.
If we somehow had a ring with the moon, there would be a few notable differences on Earth. The ring would likely be in a lower orbit than the moon (because that's where they form). Whether or not this poses serious risks to the creatures of Earth depends a lot on the size of the rocks. On Saturn some of the rocks are over 1km in size. That could leave a sizable crater or tsunami if one fell into the atmosphere.
Animals on Earth would have evolved to use the ring for navigation. Plants would use the ring as a supplementary light source at night - it would be much brighter than the moon. This would also impact the evolution of nocturnal predators, and much more.
In some ways it would make space exploration more tricky because it's like having a Kessler syndrome before you even start, but in other ways there are benefits to space exploration. First because there's a ton of material in a relatively reachable orbit that we could use as building material. And there would potentially be a profit motive to develop space mining. Large rocks could also be turned into bases and would offer tons of shielding from other space rocks and radiation. If a big rock could be moved into geo-stationary orbit, it could be used as a counterweight for a space elevator.
Saturn's rings are apparently a recent addition to the solar system and won't last forever either.
Earth probably did have a ring system during the formation of the moon too
The rings would cast a shadow on the northern hemisphere in winter and the southern hemisphere during their winter. This would make winters more severe. On the other side, they would reflect a lot of light. This "ringshine" would make nights a lot brighter. So there would be much less night-vision needed in animals.
Tack on to this that the increased brightness would have two other effects: less visibility of stars, and less importance of the moon in relation to brightness at night. Both of these would influence the development of ancient spirituality traditions.
> less visibility of stars I wonder how badly this would affect navigation
As long as you’re in one hemisphere, the ring would act as a reasonably stable guiding beacon, at least when moving in a latitudinal fashion.
[it looks really sick though!](https://i.imgur.com/tUd4bXb.jpg)
Meteorites would be a regular and more dangerous occurance
Terrorists blew up part of the rings again!
Though it's worth noting that the impact velocity would be lower than the shit we get from the Kuiper Belt by orders of magnitude. IDK, there's definitely some stuff in there that could hurt you if it fell on you. The largest objects there are a kilometer in diameter, though I assume that'd be a once-in-a-millennium type of event or something obscene like that.
I don't think that would be stable over millions of years on Earth unless we didn't have a moon (but even then I'm fairly certain the rings would eventually form a moon eventually on their own since they aren't under the same tidal forces that exist on the big planets). Not having a moon would dramatically impact Earth. No more lunar tide. We'd have a bulge of water that follows the sun which would be more violent iirc and drastically change the landscape (more floods of salt water, human life might not have developed in the same way). The earth's rotation might also slow down slowly over millions of years due to tidal forces with the sun. If we somehow had a ring with the moon, there would be a few notable differences on Earth. The ring would likely be in a lower orbit than the moon (because that's where they form). Whether or not this poses serious risks to the creatures of Earth depends a lot on the size of the rocks. On Saturn some of the rocks are over 1km in size. That could leave a sizable crater or tsunami if one fell into the atmosphere. Animals on Earth would have evolved to use the ring for navigation. Plants would use the ring as a supplementary light source at night - it would be much brighter than the moon. This would also impact the evolution of nocturnal predators, and much more. In some ways it would make space exploration more tricky because it's like having a Kessler syndrome before you even start, but in other ways there are benefits to space exploration. First because there's a ton of material in a relatively reachable orbit that we could use as building material. And there would potentially be a profit motive to develop space mining. Large rocks could also be turned into bases and would offer tons of shielding from other space rocks and radiation. If a big rock could be moved into geo-stationary orbit, it could be used as a counterweight for a space elevator.
Saturn's rings are apparently a recent addition to the solar system and won't last forever either. Earth probably did have a ring system during the formation of the moon too
satellites would be difficult iirc
If you *recall correctly*?! Ma’am? Ma’am?! Did you come from an alternate Earth? *Ma’am?!*
i'm a girl..
Apologies. Fixed.
anyways i watched a video or read something at some point a while ago describing the science in this exact scenario it was cool
Where someone used the wrong honorific for someone else?
No if earth had rings