CU Boulder study reveals that Saturn's rings are much younger than the planet itself at around 400 million years old, but their origin remains a mystery. A new study has found that Saturn's rings are likely no more than 400 million years old, much younger than the planet itself, which is about 4.
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.
Today, scientists know that Saturn hosts seven rings comprised of countless chunks of ice, most no bigger than a boulder on Earth. Altogether, this ice weighs about half as much as Saturn’s moon Mimas and stretches nearly 175,000 miles from the planet’s surface. But that idea raised a few issues—namely, Saturn’s rings are sparkling clean. Observations suggest that these features are made up of roughly 98% pure water ice by volume, with only a tiny amount of rocky matter.Cassini offered an opportunity to put a definitive age on Saturn’s rings. The spacecraft first arrived at Saturn in 2004 and collected data until it
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