The Disappearance of Saturn’s Rings: Will Saturn Lose Its Iconic Feature?

KOMPAS.com – TikTok’s social media timeline is busy discussing Saturn’s rings which are said to be disappearing.

One of these topics was uploaded by the TikTok account @humanlangit, Tuesday (3/10/2023).

“Let’s take a look at Saturn which is about to lose its rings,” said the uploader.

Rings are one of the characteristic features of Saturn’s appearance. In fact, Saturn’s rings are the only planetary rings in the solar system that can be seen from Earth.

However, the uploader said that Saturn’s rings will disappear in a very long time, up to hundreds of millions of years.

Meanwhile, in a video upload from the @meliatmu account, Saturday (7/10/2023), you can see an illustration of dust-like particles circling Saturn.

“The planet Saturn is in the process of losing its rings,” wrote the uploader.

As of Friday (10/13/2023) afternoon, the video upload had been viewed more than 3.6 million times, liked by 583,000 users, and re-uploaded by more than 38,000 TikTok netizens.

So, is it true that Saturn’s rings will disappear?

Also read: In the future, the phenomenon of a total solar eclipse may become extinct, there will only be a ring of fire

Saturn’s rings will disappear

National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) astronomy and astrophysics researcher Clara Yono Yatini said that Saturn’s rings are currently in a stable condition.

“Even if it disappears, it might still take a long time,” he said, when contacted by Kompas.com, Friday (13/10/2023).

Clara explained that the ring of the second largest planet in the solar system after Jupiter is actually made of ice and rock.

“From the remnants of the formation of the solar system,” continued Clara.

On the other hand, Indonesian amateur astronomer Marufin Sudibyo explained that Saturn’s ring system is similar to that of other large planets, such as Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune.

According to him, ring systems are generally formed by natural protosatellites (rings of dust surrounding young planets) which cannot clump any larger in the process of planet formation.

This is because the distance is too close to the parent planet, which is exactly or less than the Roche distance.

The Roche distance itself is the limit at which celestial bodies around the parent planet can maintain their existence from disintegration caused by tidal forces from the parent object.

“At this distance, the protosatellite material experiences quite large gravitational tidal forces between the side facing the planet and the side facing away from it,” explained Marufin to Kompas.com, Friday.

As a result, protosatellites are broken up into various sizes, ranging from large chunks to the size of dust.

“These fragments are forced around the planet as a ring system,” he continued.

Marufin said that ring systems are generally unstable due to the attraction between the gravity of the parent planet and its neighbors.

Therefore, according to calculations, the ring systems on the large planets of the solar system, except Saturn, will only last for a few tens to hundreds of millions of years.

“During that time, the ring system will slowly move away from the parent planet and then be released into interplanetary space as micro meteoroids,” said Marufin.

Also read: Can the annular solar eclipse in October 2023 be seen in Indonesia?

When did Saturn lose its rings?

Specifically for Saturn, according to Marufin, its ring system is quite old, and was even formed at the same time as the formation of proto-Saturn.

He explained that the dust in Saturn’s ring system rubs against each other, so it has an electric charge.

Not to mention, the dust that makes up these rings will be attracted by Saturn’s strong magnetic field.

Observations and measurements by the Cassini spacecraft in 2017 also showed that, with a ring mass loss rate of around 44 tons per second, Saturn’s ring system is predicted to disappear within the next 100 million years.

“However, Saturn’s ring system also received additional material,” said Marufin.

For example, additional ash from cryovolcanism occurs continuously on Enceladus, one of Saturn’s volcanically active satellites.

“Because there is an additional supply of material from Saturn’s satellites, the rings will disappear perhaps over the next 200 million years,” he said.

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2023-10-13 10:00:00
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