When you think of Saturn, many people think of unique rings. It has the largest circle of any planet in the solar system. It is known that the impressive rings have been with Saturn since his birth. However, a recent paper published in the journal Science Advances in collaboration with international scientists says otherwise. Saturn is about 4.5 billion years old, while its rings are only about 400 million years old.
Throughout the 20th century, astronomers assumed that the rings formed at the same time as Saturn. However, some questions have arisen. The rings sparkled clean of old substance. Researchers examined the dust of the ring to reveal its secrets. Small grains of rock are constantly roaming the solar system. As a result, it also forms a thin layer of dust on the planet’s surface, including Saturn’s rings. Over time, the layer of dust becomes thicker.
Sasha Campside, a physicist at the University of Colorado, compared the study of Saturn’s rings to a carpet in a house. “If you have a clean carpet on it, it will collect dust if you leave it alone,” he explained. “The same is true of Saturn’s rings.”
We borrowed the power of NASA to analyze the dust beneath distant Saturn. It was assisted by the Cassini Huygens probe, which went directly to Saturn between 2004 and 2017. A space dust analyzer mounted on the probe was able to collect Saturnian dust particles. A total of 163 grains were collected over 13 years. Based on the sample, it was possible to conclude that Saturn’s rings have existed in space for hundreds of millions of years. Hundreds of millions of years seem like a long time, but from an astronomical point of view, they are on the young axis.
“We still don’t know how Saturn’s rings came to be,” Kemp said.
Scientists estimate that the amount of dust that accumulates on Saturn’s rings each year is less than 1 gram per 0.09 square meter. It looks small, but as it continues to accumulate over millions of years, it becomes visible.
Studies of Saturn have shown that its seven rings also contain several blocks of ice as large as rocks. The ice weighs about half of Saturn’s moon Mimas. The rings extend about 175,000 miles from the surface of the planet.
Future launches of new probes by NASA will provide more detailed information about cosmic dust. The Europa Clipper probe is expected to be launched around October 2024. This time, instead of Saturn, it is going to Jupiter’s moon Europa. Plans to investigate whether ice-covered satellites are suitable for life
