Liputan6.com, Washington D.C. – The iconic rings commonly seen around the planet Saturn may not be visible to sky watchers in the future, according to new research.
New analysis of data captured by NASA’s Cassini probe has revealed new insights into how long the rings have been around and when they might disappear from view.
Cassini orbited the planet and studied Saturn’s moons between 2004 and 2017.
Quoted from CNNThursday (25/5/2023) these findings have been shared in three studies published in May 2023.
Our solar system and its planets formed about 4.6 billion years ago, and since then, scientists have long debated the age and origin of Saturn’s rings.
Some astronomers think that the bright ice rings indicate the young age of the natural body, as it has not been eroded and darkened by interactions with meteoroids for billions of years.
That theory is supported by data from Cassini, which has produced new findings and published May 15 in the journal Icarus. Additional study published May 12 in Science Advances also came to the same conclusion.
“Our inescapable conclusion is that Saturn’s rings must be relatively young by astronomical standards, only a few hundred million years,” said Richard Durisen, professor emeritus of astronomy at Indiana Bloomington University and lead author of both of the Icarus studies.
“If you look at Saturn’s satellite system, there are other clues that something dramatic has happened there in the last few hundred million years. If Saturn’s rings aren’t as old as the planet’s, that means something happened to form their extraordinary structures, and that’s very interesting to study. “
According to the researchers, it is possible that the seven rings were still in the process of forming when the dinosaurs roamed the Earth.
2023-05-28 00:00:00
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