Rings & Moons
Ring Structure, Shepherds & Moon Systems
A, B, and C rings separated by the Cassini Division. Inner ring particles orbit faster than outer ones (Kepler's 3rd law). Shepherd moons sit at gap edges. Three named outer moons (Mimas, Tethys, Titan) orbit on dashed paths.
Rings form inside the Roche limit — the distance below which tidal forces overcome a body's self-gravity. Material there cannot coalesce into a moon, so it spreads into a flat orbiting sheet.
Possible origins: a moon torn apart on a decaying orbit, a comet captured and shredded, leftover material from formation, or impact debris from larger moons.
Despite their breadth (Saturn's rings span 280,000 km end-to-end), main rings are vertically thin — about 10 m. They are proportionally thinner than a sheet of paper at the scale of a football field.
Rings in Elite Dangerous come in four compositions: rocky, icy, metallic, and metal-rich. Composition determines what minerals you can extract.
Pristine reserves in metallic rings yield the rarest minerals. Hotspot scanning inside the ring reveals concentrated ore deposits.
The visual ring structure in ED is simplified — real planetary rings have complex banding, gaps, and spokes that change on timescales of hours to years.
| Feature | Composition | Scale | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Saturn's A ring | Water ice (98%) + traces | ~10 m | Outermost main ring — bordered by Encke and Keeler gaps |
| Cassini Division | Mostly empty | ~4,800 km | Cleared by 2:1 resonance with Mimas |
| Saturn's B ring | Water ice — dense | ~10 m | Brightest, densest main ring |
| Saturn's C ring | Water ice — sparse | ~5 m | Thinner, more transparent inner ring |
| Pan & Daphnis | Rock + ice | ~30 km bodies | Shepherd moons that maintain Encke and Keeler gaps |
| Jupiter's ring | Dust from impacts | ~30 km | Tenuous, replenished by impacts on small inner moons |
| Uranus' ring system | Dark carbonaceous | — | 13 narrow rings, kept thin by shepherd moons |
| Galilean moons | Mixed rock/ice | — | Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto in a 4:2:1 resonance chain |