Édouard Roche

Édouard Albert Roche (1820-1883) was a French scientist.

He is famous for his theory that the planetary rings of Saturn were formed when a large moon came too close to Saturn and was pulled apart by gravitational forces. He also gave his name to both the Roche limit as well as the unrelated concept of the Roche lobe, a useful concept when dealing with the gravitational interaction of a binary star system.