Within hours of minor moon shattering all of Heart became aware of the fact, whether from the panicked news of the catastrophe that overrode all other events, or from having their lives changed – if not ended – by chunks of moonrock smashing into the planet. It was fortunate that the explosions had been so devastating that the bulk of the satellite's mass broke into pieces too small to cause any major damage. Globally speaking, at any rate..

     There had been no time for the mining colonies to send word home as to what had happened, but it didn't take long for Heart's scientific community to discover that the debris was highly radioactive. Further investigative efforts revealed that the consortium of businesses that owned and ran the mining colonies on the moons had been utilising old nuclear weapons, banned under the GALA accord, to speed up blasting deep in the minor moon's crust.
     This did not please the heartlings, and violence would have been rife, had the planet not been in chaos. As it was, after the main culprits had been butchered by the slightly more organised of the panicking mobs looking for someone to blame, a more detailed investigation would have to wait until the situation had been stabilised and the world knew if it was facing the death of all its life through radiation poising.
     Fortunately this turned out not to be the case. After a relatively short time the debris began to form a broad and tenuous ring around Heart; impacts of poisoned rock from the destroyed satellite decreased and then almost ceased; and the scientific fraternity tentatively surmised that although the moon portions were still radioactive and would remain that way for a very long time, the rings were sufficiently far away from the planet to pose no problem. Although it would be wise for transports to major moon to avoid passing anywhere near them.
     The rings were also quite beautiful, sparkling when the sunlight shone directly through them and gleaming eerily in the reflected light from the shepherding major moon. It didn't take long, once they were reassured they were in no obvious danger, for the heartlings to start feeling proud of their homeworld's new adornment...