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Saturn's rings are much younger than originally thought
2025-10-12 12:29:53 / MISTERE&KURIOZITETE
When we look at the other planets in our solar system, one of them immediately stands out. Saturn stands out because of its unusual rings, which are thought to be made up of pieces of comets, asteroids or broken moons that were destroyed before they reached the planet, according to the Guardian.
But once upon a time, these rings didn't exist at all. And now, scientists studying the gas giant say its famous rings are much younger than previously thought.
NASA researchers analyzed data from the Cassini spacecraft. They focused on the thin layer of cosmic dust that sits on top of the ice that makes up Saturn's rings. The idea was to measure how quickly this dust accumulates, which would give clues to their age.
Scientists explain with an example; imagine a 500-year-old house that has never been cleaned, the layer of dust would be much thicker than in a 30-year-old house.
It is already known that Saturn itself is about 4.5 billion years old, the same age as the rest of the solar system. But thanks to new evidence from cosmic dust, scientists believe the rings are only about 400 million years old.
Professor Sascha Kempf, from the University of Colorado in the US, said this is a big step towards understanding more about Saturn's seven rings, but their formation still remains a mystery:
"We know roughly how old the rings are, but that doesn't answer the other questions. We still don't know how they formed in the first place."
Experts think the rings may already be disappearing and will be completely gone in about 100 million years, as ice is "raining" onto the gas giant planet.
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