CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — New analysis means that Saturn’s rings could also be older than they appear — presumably as previous because the planet.
Instead of being a youthful 400 million years previous as generally thought, the icy, shimmering rings could possibly be round 4.5 billion years previous similar to Saturn, a Japanese-led workforce 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 previous primarily based on greater than a decade of observations by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft earlier than its demise in 2017.
Images by Cassini confirmed no proof of any darkening of the rings by impacting micrometeoroids — area rock particles smaller than a grain of sand — prompting scientists to conclude the rings fashioned lengthy after the planet.
Through laptop modeling, the Institute of Science Tokyo’s Ryuki Hyodo and his workforce 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 area, preserving the rings spotless and difficult the newborn rings principle. Their outcomes seem within the journal Nature Geoscience.
Hyodo stated it is doable Saturn’s rings could possibly be someplace between the 2 excessive ages — across the midway mark of two.25 billion years previous. But the photo voltaic system was far more chaotic throughout its early life with massive planetary-type objects migrating and interacting all over, simply the form of situation that may be conducive to producing Saturn’s rings.
“Considering the photo voltaic system’s evolutionary historical past, it is extra seemingly that the rings fashioned nearer to” Saturn’s earliest instances, he stated in an e mail.
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