How Mars getting its rings (in 50 million years) connects to career pivoting
I’ve been super fascinated by planets with ring systems ever since I can remember. Do you know how the rings form around worlds? How could these cool-looking heavenly bodies have anything to do with pivoting your career?
Like most, I’ve found myself stuck a couple of times during my career, but always feel that the “crisis“ I’m going through at that moment must be the toughest one yet. It’s easy then to forget that we’re able to draw from all of those previous “crisis” experiences, and even easier to let emotions and/or negative talk-downs distance us from seeing good solutions. Mentally, I’ve gone through this process during this Covid-era, probably like a lot of other people. So how to keep on swimming, even if we feel we’re being dragged down and are gasping for air?
Mars will be royalty*
*poor Phobos?
»Home of the Emperor of the Known Universe«
One of the first instances where I vividly remember seeing a ringed planet was in David Lynch’s 1984 version of Dune. Right after the films intro, we’re the presented with 3 planets. One is the majestic ringed planet of Kaitain. It even looks royal! And naturally, it’s the Home of the Emperor of the Known Universe. I also remember seeing a double-ringed planet (the rings formed an “X”) in a cartoon or a movie once as a kid (please do tell me if anyone remembers where), which to me, was way cooler and even more super-heroic than let’s say, He-Man (I was born in 1985, so of course I watched He-Man)! Although I now know that they’re not at all uncommon (all of the gas giants in our solar system have them), ringed planets still seem like planet-royalty to me.
To answer our original question - how do rings form around planets? Planetary rings form when comets, asteroids or moons come too close to the planet (the Roche limit) and are torn apart by it’s gravity. The debris is then scattered around the planet and due to its rotation, flattened to finally form a ring system. The same will happen in about 50 million years to one of the two Mars’ moons, Phobos (imagine people living on Mars with rings!!!). Now demystified, the rings formation / transformation still seems amazing, but the key is to understand that something needs to be destroyed first in order for it to form into something new and spectacular! So the next time you’re in transition with your career (or anything else, actually) and are clinging to your fear of change – remember that even Mars will go through a process of ripping apart its moon so it can become royalty among planets as a result. Realizing this has helped me embrace change more. Sometimes, we too, need to be in crisis so we can grow. And it’s our best and strongest parts that we should build our brighter future from.