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.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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.