A quirk of physics can lead to some real drama. Two quirks of physics can lead to very dramatic pictures. "Why Phil, what could you possibly mean?", I hear you thinking*. This is what I mean: Saturn's moon Titan, sliced in twain by the planet's rings:
[Click to enchronosenate.] Due to a quirk of physics (aha!) all the moons and rings of Saturn orbit the big planet in the same plane. There are two reasons for this: one is that they almost all formed out of the same disk of material orbiting the Sun. As the pieces clumped together, they naturally all stuck to the same plane. A second reason is that any object that tries to stray out of that plane (or that gets captured by Saturn like some of its bizarre outer moons) feels a torque on it, forcing it back down. That torque is provided by Saturn ...
