Why the differing periods of view of edge on saturn rings?
963778
Eliptical orbits. If the orbit were circular, then you'd expect the period to be the same. ...The planet speeds up and slows down and spends more time at the part of the orbit more distant from the sun.
517874
Night and day occur at the same time on opposite sides of a planet.
692594
one and two. and edge is where two faces meet. think about it, you got that ring at the bottom of the cone, and you have two on a cylinder.
339062
Ak47 got it.\n\nWhen you see a picture of say, Saturn taken by the Cassini spacecraft, the camera's exposure is optimized for viewing the planet, not the background stars.  A longer exposure would show the stars, but wash out the planet.
342804
The rings can be viewed using a quite modest modern telescope or with a good pair of binoculars. They extend from 6,630 km to 120,700 km above Saturn's equator, and are composed of silica rock, iron oxide, and ice particles ranging in size from specks of dust to the size of a small automobile. There are two main theories regarding the origin of Saturn's rings. One theory, originally proposed by Édouard Roche in the 19th century, is that the rings were once a moon of Saturn whose orbit decayed until it came close enough to be ripped apart by tidal forces (see Roche limit). A variation of this theory is that the moon disintegrated after being struck by a large comet or asteroid. The second theory is that the rings were never part of a moon, but are instead left over from the original nebular material that Saturn formed out of. This theory is not widely accepted today, since Saturn's rings are thought to be unstable over periods of millions of years and therefore of relatively recent origin.
66192
It is due to the slight orbital eccentricity of Earth rotation around the Sun. Since the orbit is not perfectly circular the distance between the two bodies varies.
968297
The gravity is pretty much even all the way around, just like it is on Earth. The flat accretion disk is just the result of angular momentum of nearby matter. It is also the reason Saturn has flat rings and not just a cloud of stiff orbiting it.
1087183
The moon has a side that always faces us! That's not always filled with light though. That's why we have phases of the moon.
830416
it means that  the mercurys orbit as seen from the earth is currently crossing the path of the sun.\n\nthink of it as just another eclipse. only mercury is too small and too far away to block much of the light from the sun\n\nthere is no signigicance. it happens at regualr intervals. it is just a neat thing to see.
14526
The bright ring is called a 'halo'\n\nIt's a fairly common sight and occurs when high thin clouds containing millions of tiny ice crystals cover much of the sky. Each ice crystal acts like a miniature lens. Because most of the crystals have a similar elongated hexagonal shape, light entering one crystal face and exiting through the opposing face refracts 22 degrees, which corresponds to the radius of the Moon Halo.\n\nSee a nice picture of one here:\nhttp://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000515.html
245435
If you need exact numbers, then you will have problems. How exactly do you define a ring? \n\nRoughly speaking, from references,\n\nSaturn 7 major rings; 15 named rings\nJupiter 3 rings\nNeptune 4 rings\nUranus 11 rings\n\nThis gives a total of 25 rings. However, look at some of the pictures in the references. If one counts more minor rings, there are a lot more than 25 total rings. According to the last reference, Saturn alone has literally thousands of rings, and the total number is unknown.
991898
Easy question first, they are there because the gravitational pull of Saturn caused 2 or more objects to collide with enough velocity for the debri not to fall to saturn.\n\nNow the hard one, according to NASA:\n\n"Cassini found that the inner and outer parts of ring B contain rings that are hundreds of kilometers wide (hundreds of miles) and vary greatly in the amount of material they contain. A thick, 5,000-kilometer-wide (3,100-mile) core contains several bands with ring material that is nearly four times as dense as that of ring A and nearly 20 times as dense as that of ring C."
614434
According to my STARRY NIGHT astronomy software, Saturn is currently 9.625au from us. \nThe reason it varies is because the planets orbit around the sun aren't 100% perfect circles, and go round at different speeds, so aren't at a constant distance.
275720
It has to do with the path of the earth and the sun through space.\n\nThe websites I've attached should help.
310923
It's orbit is closer to a circle than any other with an eccentricity of less that 1%. It also has a retrograde motion (it rotates from east to west instead of west to east). It always shows the same face to earth in the same way the moon does.
177270
Graves face east and west because the sun rises in the east and sets in the west the relevance i dont really know buts thats why as far as i know:P
608888
Check the first link for the pics.\n\nSaturn's equator is tilted relative to its orbit by 27 degrees, very similar to the 23-degree tilt of the Earth. As Saturn moves along its orbit, first one hemisphere, then the other is tilted towards the Sun. This cyclical change causes seasons on Saturn, just as the changing orientation of Earth's tilt causes seasons on our planet. The first image in this sequence, on the lower left, was taken soon after the autumnal equinox in Saturn's Northern Hemisphere (which is the same as the spring equinox in its Southern Hemisphere). By the final image in the sequence, on the upper right, the tilt is nearing its extreme, or winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere (summer solstice in the Southern Hemisphere).\n\nAstronomers are studying this set of images to investigate the detailed variations in the color and brightness of the rings. They hope to learn more about the rings' composition, how they were formed, and how long they might last. Saturn's rings are incredibly thin, with a thickness of only about 30 feet (10 meters). The rings are made of dusty water ice, in the form of boulder-sized and smaller chunks that gently collide with each other as they orbit around Saturn. Saturn's gravitational field constantly disrupts these ice chunks, keeping them spread out and preventing them from combining to form a moon. The rings, as shown here, have a slight pale reddish color due to the presence of organic material mixed with the water ice.\n\nSaturn is about 75,000 miles (120,000 km) across, and is flattened at the poles because of its very rapid rotation. A day is only 10 hours long on Saturn. Strong winds account for the horizontal bands in the atmosphere of this giant gas planet. The delicate color variations in the clouds are due to smog in the upper atmosphere, produced when ultraviolet radiation from the Sun shines on methane gas. Deeper in the atmosphere, the visible clouds and gases merge gradually into hotter and denser gases, with no solid surface for visiting spacecraft to land on. \n\n\nThe second link tells you something about Saturn\n\nst