CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — New analysis means that Saturn’s rings could also be older than they give the impression of being — probably as outdated because the planet.
As an alternative of being a youthful 400 million years outdated as generally thought, the icy, shimmering rings may very well be round 4.5 billion years outdated simply like Saturn, a Japanese-led group reported Monday.
The scientists surmise Saturn’s rings could also be pristine not as a result of they’re younger however as a result of they’re dirt-resistant.
Saturn’s rings are lengthy regarded as between 100 million and 400 million years outdated primarily based on greater than a decade of observations by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft earlier than its demise in 2017.
Photos by Cassini confirmed no proof of any darkening of the rings by impacting micrometeoroids — house rock particles smaller than a grain of sand — prompting scientists to conclude the rings shaped lengthy after the planet.
By way of pc modeling, the Institute of Science Tokyo’s Ryuki Hyodo and his group demonstrated that micrometeoroids vaporize as soon as slamming into the rings, with little if any darkish and soiled residue left behind. They discovered that the ensuing charged particles get sucked towards Saturn or out into house, preserving the rings spotless and difficult the child rings principle. Their outcomes seem within the journal Nature Geoscience.
Hyodo mentioned it is potential Saturn’s rings may very well be someplace between the 2 excessive ages — across the midway mark of two.25 billion years outdated. However the photo voltaic system was rather more chaotic throughout its youth with giant planetary-type objects migrating and interacting in every single place, simply the kind of situation that will be conducive to producing Saturn’s rings.
“Contemplating the photo voltaic system’s evolutionary historical past, it’s extra probably that the rings shaped nearer to” Saturn’s earliest instances, he mentioned in an electronic mail.
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