Effects of Rings - Debris?
I've been thinking about writing a fantasy novel set on an earth-like world with Saturn-like rings. I've been doing some research here by looking up questions about worlds with rings, of which there is a surprising amount. One answer I found indicated that:
The area under the rings will be an exclusion zone because the material will continue to fall to the earth for millions of years. Expect lots of craters and volcanism due to damage to the tectonic plates.
Such a phenomenon isn't mentioned in any other question/answer about rings which I've found, leading me to wonder if it would, in fact, be the case. That answer dealt specifically with the evolution of a ring, which I am not interested in, but it did mention that debris would continue to rain down for "millions of years". It doesn't sound like things will be letting up any time soon. Is the fall of debris just an 'early-stage' thing which will let up after a few million years? The answer doesn't specify.
I don't want a planet with an equator being pulverized by rocks big enough to wipe out nearby civilizations every 20-ish years. So my question is, if an earth-like planet (or simply Earth, for that matter) had Saturn-like rings, would there be any debris-fall beneath them? For all details, assume the rings are identical to the rings of Saturn, just scaled down so the proportions are the same for Earth as they are for Saturn.
Note that I am aware this question has been answered in the question above. This is not a duplicate question, because I am asking whether or not that answer can be backed up/special circumstances explained, due to the fact that no other questions/answers about rings which I have found even mention such a phenomenon.
0 answers
0 comment threads