Another study suggests Saturn’s rings are young, much younger than the planet
Scientists using data from Cassini, which orbited Saturn from 2004 to 2017, have confirmed earlier research that said Saturn’s rings are much younger than the planet, only about 400 million years old.
From 2004 to 2017, the team used an instrument called the Cosmic Dust Analyzer aboard NASA’s late Cassini spacecraft to analyze specks of dust flying around Saturn. Over those 13 years, the researchers collected just 163 grains that had originated from beyond the planet’s close neighborhood. But it was enough. Based on their calculations, Saturn’s rings have likely been gathering dust for only a few hundred million years.
Though I cannot cite the earlier research, I distinctly remember a study from about a decade ago that posited the rings being young, only a few hundred million years old. This research confirms this conclusion, and likely firms up the theory considerably.
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Scientists using data from Cassini, which orbited Saturn from 2004 to 2017, have confirmed earlier research that said Saturn’s rings are much younger than the planet, only about 400 million years old.
From 2004 to 2017, the team used an instrument called the Cosmic Dust Analyzer aboard NASA’s late Cassini spacecraft to analyze specks of dust flying around Saturn. Over those 13 years, the researchers collected just 163 grains that had originated from beyond the planet’s close neighborhood. But it was enough. Based on their calculations, Saturn’s rings have likely been gathering dust for only a few hundred million years.
Though I cannot cite the earlier research, I distinctly remember a study from about a decade ago that posited the rings being young, only a few hundred million years old. This research confirms this conclusion, and likely firms up the theory considerably.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
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Surprised this is considered news. As far back as I can remember, the rings have been attributed to the disintegration of a moon which it the Roche Limit. Which, would make the rings, by definition, younger than the planet. Maybe the fact that it adds more confirmation to that theory?
Here is the 2019 study that is probably what you remember: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aat2965. Ars Technica has a good article on the new study and the history https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/05/more-evidence-emerges-that-saturns-rings-are-much-younger-than-the-planet/
David Eastman: Yup, I think that’s at least one such study that lurks in the basement of my memory. I also think there were others, even earlier, around 2010.