Destroying moons, debris, ring system

[dvon5000]

Help me indulge in some sci-fi speculation. If you destroyed / smashed / blew a sizable chunk out of one or two of Jupiter's larger moons, say Io or Europa, what would happen to all the debris? We're talking relativistic impact weaponry, like a chunk of metal traveling at near-light-speed. Would debris eventually form a ring system, and if so, how long would this process take, and how much debris would it require? I'm sure such an event would wreak havoc on the orbits of all the other objects around Jupiter, but I'm not sure where to start in picturing how. Have any simulations / studies ever been attempted on similar topics?

[Solfe]

Welcome to the board!

Io's atmosphere already interacts with Jupiter's magnetosphere and there is a torus of these particles circling Jupiter. Some of them have enough velocity to escape the system while some hang around.

My best guess is that the destruction of Io would simply be a larger form of this torus. I am not sure, but I suspect the ring that it forms would be less impressive than Saturn's rings due to the volume of space the debris would have to occupy and make up the debris.

All this is just a guess on my part, I am not an expert on the subject matter.

Someone with more knowledge will be around soon, I am sure.

[eburacum45]

Io would probably make a much darker ring system than Europa, if you were to blow it up; Europa contains much more ice. The ring would start as an irregular torus, but would slowly settle into a flat ring because of friction effects.

[eburacum45]

See this post by Stupendousman, who has described the process a number of times on this forum.
http://www.bautforum.com/showthread....31#post1940131

[chornedsnorkack]

Ring would not start as "torus".

Initially, the debris would start on various orbits, ellipses, parabols and hyperbols, which have different eccentricities and inclinations.

However, they all intersect at the impact point.

The parabolic and hyperbolic orbits fly away, except those which intersect Jupiter or other satellites. The elliptic orbits which intersect surface of Jupiter fall in on the first orbit.

Other elliptic orbits have different major axes. Thus different periods.

The orbits which have the same period as the remnant Io, or multiples thereof, collide on the next orbit.

The others will return to impact point each orbit - but Io will then be elsewhere on her orbit.

What next?

[agingjb]

Io is much bigger than the whole Saturn ring system (1000 to 1?). Such an impact would certainly push a lot of of material outside the Io orbit area, but everything non-hyperbolic that didn't impact anything else would continue to revisit the Io orbit. Io is outside the Roche limit so there should be a (rather messy) re-coalescence.

So, I'd expect a lot of impacts, especially on Amalthea and Europa and between fragments, a sustained ringish area of debris for a time (thousands of years?), and, eventually at least one large satellite not too far from Io's current orbit - with, perhaps, some co-orbitals.