What would the sky look like in the SHADOW of planetary rings?
Background: I'm writing a nomadic society that lives in the shadow of their planet's rings. These rings are as wide as possible to grant them the biggest shadow. The planet has an incredibly long year to give them time to travel as the shadow moves. I know some have already asked what the sky looks like from the surface of the planet in general, but my story is set entirely in the shadow.
What does the sky look like from within the shadow? Is the sky closer to blue or black? Day or night? If the rings block a sizeable amount of sunlight, but not all, would they simply experience the equivalent of a cloudy day, with extraordinarily bright nights? If the planet has a few small shepherd moons in the ring plane, would they be visible in the shadow?
Thank you!
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I think the result will be very similar to what happens here on this Earth during a solar eclipse. I like this quote from http://www.eclipse2017.org/2017/what_you_see.htm:
You'll get the shrinking sliver of Sun, which is kind of cool but is not the real show. As the sliver thins, though, you get the very weird atmosphere that surrounds an eclipse, which is very difficult to describe. As the sliver of sun gets thinner and thinner, the sky darkens a bit, and the light around you takes on a weird, "clearer" quality. Everything seems sharper and clearer, though darker. It's kind of like if you were squinting, and everything seemed much clearer to you. It's very strange, and it's a very powerful effect on your senses.
Whether your world gets this full effect or just a partial effect, such as what one will see if not directly on the line of the eclipse, will depend on the density and opacity of the particles in the rings. Even a partial eclipse produces a similar sensation.
I barely remember the one in 1979, and I am greatly looking forward to the one upcoming. What I do remember was that it got dark, but not really. You could still see outside, not at all like at night-time. The sky was blue, but more like navy blue than the normal azure. Like the linked article says, it's really hard to describe- it's just, weird.
You can try an image search of sky during an eclipse, but the photos don't do justice to being there. If you're in the right place, you just have to wait eight months to get your full complete answer.
This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/66684. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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