A team of Japanese scientists has published the results of a theoretical study on Saturn’s rings. They concluded that the rings should be older than commonly believed.
The question of the origin and age of Saturn’s rings has long been a nagging question for scientists. In the past, it was believed that they were old and formed at the same time as the planet. That all changed with the arrival of the Cassini spacecraft to Saturn. It managed to determine for the first time the mass of the planet’s rings (it turned out to be equivalent to about 40% of the mass of its moon Mimas), as well as to measure the rate of deposition of their matter on Saturn. It turned out that the planet’s rings would have to disappear within the next hundred million years.
This, as well as the fact that Cassini images failed to show any signs of darkening of the rings as a result of collisions with meteoroids, has led scientists to conclude that the rings are relatively young. They are thought to have formed no later than 400 million years ago as a result of the destruction of one of Saturn’s moons.
But scientists at the Tokyo Institute of Science have a different opinion. A recent issue of Nature Geoscience published the results of their study on the age of Saturn’s rings. Scientists have carried out computer modeling of the consequences of collision of matter rings with meteoroids. It shows that the charged particles produced are sucked towards Saturn or escape into space, keeping the rings clean and leaving no messy residue. This means that a “fresh” appearance is not necessarily indicative of their youth.
According to scientists, it is possible that the real age of Saturn’s rings is somewhere in the middle between the two previous estimates and is 2.25 billion years. At that time, the Solar System was a much more chaotic place than now, which may have contributed to the formation of the rings.
Provided by Phys.org
